


Running Dry

by GreenWool



Series: Running Dry [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:52:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 118,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1329154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenWool/pseuds/GreenWool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Her boots are dusty instead of muddy on the first day of June, and she has an acute sense of impending danger." </p>
<p>Fire ravages District Twelve, and Katniss loses one of the last pieces of her father that she has left- his bow. Badly injured and stretched to the ends of her own endurance, just how much is she willing to sacrifice to keep herself and those she loves alive?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fire

  


_**i.** _

* * *

There had been rumblings for weeks that it could happen. It had happened before; fire took Twelve almost sixty years ago, when it had been so hot and dry you had to wet your kerchief and hold it over your mouth as you walked through the streets to keep the dust out of your throat. Only Greasy Sae had been there for it, she was by far the oldest living resident of Twelve. No one was sure how old she really was and she wasn't keen on divulging that information, but not a soul doubted she knew what she was talking about when she smacked her thin lips and said conspiratorially: "Its an accident waiting to happen, is what it is."

As though they weren't talking about the very place they all lived. She shook her head as she said it, long pieces of her wiry hair falling in her face, her steely eyes watering with rheum. "And it'll start in the Seam, you mark my words girl." Katniss doesn't doubt it- all the homes in their corner of Twelve are made of wood and crumbling horse hair plaster. They're living in a tinderbox, and all it would take is a drought and a careless spark to make it an inferno.

Midway through a rainless May, Sae clucks her tongue and shoots a glance at Katniss as she clunks a bowl of cold rabbit stew in front of her. Katniss tucks in to her food, but its no longer hunger that's gnawing at her stomach. It's fear. When Gale tugs playfully at the end of her braid and asks her what's wrong, she frowns and doesn't answer.

Her boots are dusty instead of muddy on the first day of June, and she has an acute sense of impending danger. She's jumpier in school, snaps at Prim and Madge when they try to soothe her nerves, and stops doing her class work entirely. Of all people, she even snaps at poor Delly Cartwright, who had the distinct misfortune of catching her when she almost tripped over a stone on the path outside of school because she was too busy devising ways to extend their dwindling water ration.

If Gale notices her irritation, he doesn't comment, and it's not long before his nerves are on edge as well. Food in the forest dries up and dies. The lake recedes and one afternoon she and Gale find at least fifty fish gasping in the pungent mud the lake leaves behind. They bag as many as they can and trip over themselves to get back home, simultaneously amazed at their luck and deeply perturbed at the state of the lake. They sell only twenty of the fish to Ripper, trade a few with the baker, and then Hazel teaches them to salt and dry the rest.

It's lucky they do, because soon afterward there's little point in going back into the woods. There's nothing left to forage or hunt. She and Gale make one last trip loaded down with as many white liquor bottles as they can scavenge in Haymitch Abernathy's trash and fill them up with what remains of the lake. The water is dark with sediment, a sickly amber that makes her slightly queasy. They carry the water home anyway and try to clean it by passing it through layers of muslin rags and boiling it for hours. It's still not clear, but it'll have to do.

She brings an extra bottle of water to school with her everyday, watchful of fair little Prim, for whom the intense heat and sunlight is nearly unbearable. Her cheeks burn a hot red, even during the night, and Katniss sneaks out of class to bring her water throughout the day.

She watches the rest of the fair Merchant children fading away as well. One afternoon, she meets Peeta Mellark's glassy, fevered eyes across the airless classroom. He is staring openly at her, examining her an intensity that is at once strange, and quickens her blood in a way she's never felt before. When she locks gazes with him, his cheeks burn impossibly dark, and his eyes flit down to his desk, where his hand drags a pencil smoothly over its surface. He isn't writing though, she can tell by the way his arm is moving from the shoulder and not the wrist. What he was doing she couldn't guess, but maybe with the suffocating heat, he wasn't quite right in the head.

She wonders if he has sun sickness, like Prim. She wonders if his mother manages their water ration, and how generous she is with her sons. She wonders if Merchant families have bigger water rations than Seam families- and if not, how they manage with five people in their family, and among them three large sons, when her own tiny family is so close to the brink.

The bell rings and she rushes to the door, intent on finding Prim. In the congestion of bodies by the door, someone knocks into her- a brush of heated, sweat soaked skin against her own- throwing her into the person next to her. She whirls around to find Peeta's blue eyes wide with shock.

"Sorry," he says quickly. "Sorry- I'm sorry!"

She recoils instantly, startled by the wildness in her veins as her heart beats thunderously against her chest. The crush of bodies around her becomes suffocating, and she barrels her way through, suddenly desperate to be outside. She flees down the hall the moment she is able to, but she feels the weight of his stare all the way home.

Though her strange reaction towards the Mellark boy distracts her with a whole new kind of anxiety, it doesn't dispel the old one entirely. Sae turns to her that afternoon and shakes her head. "Any day now," she says, and Katniss' entire body runs cold with dread despite the dry heat in the airless Hob.

Soon after that the dust comes, rising like a cloud of smoke and settling heavily over Twelve.

It was creeping its way into the houses in June, and by July's end it had found its way into the cabinets and dressers. All the plates had to be wrapped in rags (if you had rags to spare) immediately after washing, or the washing would never end. And they have little enough water in their rations for washing as it is. Glasses were turned upside down on shelves, clothes hung over the backs of chairs, and the creases and corners of the shotgun homes in the Seam had to be stuffed with wet clumps of paper, or else you'd spend all night choking on the air. To this very end she destroys her school books, laughing as she crumples the final page of her history text.

"Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever," she intones mockingly.

She and Gale laugh humorlessly as she tells him this, and together they destroy his Language workbook and soak the pages in Hazel's dirty washing water, the grayish suds collecting at their elbows.

"Any day now," Sae reiterates, a week later when she stops by to trade, as though Katniss has forgotten her warning. She rolls her eyes, but it does nothing to stop the dread that gnaws in the pit of her stomach.

And Sae is right. The fire starts late the next afternoon, in the dusty haze of twilight after a bitterly thirsty day. Incredibly, though, it starts in the Merchant quarter. No one is quite sure exactly which home sparked the blaze, but most agree it came from somewhere around the butcher shop, which is the further east into town from the Seam. It's a small blessing- had it been any closer to the Seam, there would have been so many more lives lost.

Katniss is at least a mile away into the parched stillness of the forest, desperately scavenging for something, anything, to eat for that night, when she first smells the smoke, and her blood roars in her veins. She flies back through the trees, heels thudding against the bed of dried pine needles that cover the forest floor.

All she can think of is Prim in her worn cotton shift dress, home alone and entirely at the mercy of fate. She knows something of fate, and it is cruel in Twelve, particularly to young girls. She thinks of Prim peeling the last of their wild carrots at the kitchen table, right where she left her, as fire rips through the dry grass in their yard, terrifying Lady into leaping their fence and bounding away. Prim, with the house burning down all around her, calling to her as she is swallowed by flames. But when she clears the gate it becomes obvious that the fire is raging further east, and Prim is safe- for the moment.

Katniss bursts through her front door to find her sister shocked and trembling, a bag full of their belongings thrown over her shoulder. Her bottom lip quivers and her eyes are swimming with unshed tears.

She grabs her sister and pulls her close, swallowing thickly as she feels the younger girl quake in her arms.

"Katniss," Prim sobs "Mom's gone."

She pulls back, a black rage building in her gut.

"She left you?," she asks.

Prim nods and cries harder.

"She heard that the bakery was on fire and she just-"

Prim hiccups and swallows hard.

"-she just took off. I don't know where she was going, she didn't say anything at all and-"

"Prim. Listen to me, we'll go to the Hawthornes and you stay with them. Listen to Gale, do whatever he says. Do you understand?"

"Katniss, don't leave, don't go-"

"I have to get Mom."

She pulls upright and grabs Prim's hand, leading the girl towards the door. Outside, the sky is hazy with smoke and people run in panicked zig-zags around them. The Merchant quarter might be on fire now, but there was no telling if the flames would jump over into the Seam. And once they did, everything around them would be an inferno. She spies Gale on his front porch before they're even close. His face is drawn and tight, and he too has a bag of possessions slung over his shoulder. Posy stands tucked under his arm, her dark eyes wide with fear. Rory and Vick sit a few feet away, pale as sheets and clutching small bags of their own.

"Katniss, what-"

"No time. Can you take Prim?"

"Yes, of course. Where is your mo-?"

"She ran to town, I don't know why," she says, cutting him off quickly. "I have to go get her."

She doesn't say it and neither does Gale, but they both know that if her mother is injured or killed, she and Prim will be sent to a group home. They'd narrowly avoided this fate a few times already. Gale shoots her a panicked look and grabs Prim.

"Go Katniss," he says. "Be careful."

She turns and flies toward town, her bow and arrows bouncing in the bag slung across her shoulder. If she is seen with them she could be whipped, but she doubts very much that anyone will notice or care, given the disaster currently unfolding. All the same, she can't help the cold fear she feels when she realizes she is running plain as day through the center of Twelve with her very illegal weapon. It is absurdly reckless, but she doesn't have time to stop.

Doesn't have time to think, or breathe-

She runs headlong through streets choked with soot and smoke, which burn her throat and sting her eyes. Covering her mouth with her sleeve, she staggers forward, only removing the fabric to scream for her mother. Buildings roar with fire all around her and moan heavily in the fading sunlight as their support beams are consumed by flames. There's a deep groan and sudden crash as a house a mere few yards behind her collapses, sending a cloud of embers and black smoke into the street and high into the sky.

Panic makes her blood run cold, and a new layer of sweat prickles her skin. Though she's covered most of the Merchant Quarter, she cannot find her mother. People with soot streaked faces and their mouths and noses covered in cloth rush by her, and she whips her head around to try to catch a glimpse of them, but her mother is nowhere among them.

Hopelessness seizes her. Her calls reverberate into the thunderous inferno without answer, and she knows the longer she searches, the less chance she has of finding her.

It seems more than likely that some merchant home has become her mother's funeral pyre- perhaps it was even the bakery, as Prim suggested. She selfishly hopes against hope that at least Peeta made it out of the blaze unscathed...

That she should want that more than she hopes for her own mother shocks her, and she realizes with dawning horror that she had resigned herself to her mother's death long ago, but is not ready to let go of the boy with the bread. She has not yet found the strength to thank him. Has not found the words she needs to tell him how he saved her, how he gave more than just burnt bread, how he-

Timbers snap like gunshots beside her as another house collapses; this time just feet away. She wheels around, ready to flee, but the smoke and embers engulf her before she can take a single step. Her arm falls away from her face to brace her body as she falls, and the baked air fills her mouth and lungs. It burns so horribly she is gasping in soundless pain as she hits the earth. Her head cracks against the stone pavement and she is momentarily dazed.

The world around her- the flames, the black soot in the super-heated air, the choking gusts of smoke- slow to an incomprehensible stillness. She feels light and aimless, like ash, like she too could float away on the rising winds, her clothes just an alien weight devised to keep her earth-bound. Silence engulfs her as the scene around her grows unfamiliar.

Someone is shaking her. Their lips are moving quickly and soundlessly. Darkness pricks her vision.

"Katniss what are you doing?!"

Her mind says this in another voice. A familiar voice, but not her own. Or maybe she is hearing this. Is she hearing this?

"Don't just lie there- get up! You have to run!"

"Ok," she mumbles, and her eyes slide shut.

* * *

It was a concussion that took her, and no one will tell her how she escapes with her life. Even sweet Prim, loyal to a fault, keeps her lips tightly sealed. Katniss doesn't like mysteries, and she likes this one even less. Gale is of the same mind as she is, unsurprisingly. His jaw clenches angrily anytime its brought up, his hands jerking unsteadily in the middle of whatever task he has them engaged in.

It's incredibly strange- Gale has never hidden his anger around her before, or kept a secret from her. It hurts in a way she couldn't have ever expected, somewhere deep and dark within her, somewhere possessive and jealous. His silence is a betrayal, but she can't decipher how or why she feels this way, just that she does. And strongly. But she doesn't have time to pick this apart, or dwell on the situation for very long. There's too much to do.

With half the district destroyed, including the market, butcher and bakery, and the water supply dwindling to near nothing at all, every day is a desperate race for survival. The Capitol sends building supplies, food and money, but its only for the Merchants and they're not in a particularly neighborly mood.

Her mother's body is never found.

Katniss won't waste a solitary drop of moisture on her, let alone a tear, but she holds Prim close as she weeps into the night. She couldn't begrudge her resilient little sister a single comfort, especially now that they've lost everything but one another. They pass the days in shocked silence in the Hawthorne's cramped but cozy home. Hazel and Gale both insist on it, and though Katniss doesn't want to admit it, they're right to.

Following her accident, something isn't quite right with her. Her head stays wrapped tightly in bandages, her temple a bruised, bloody mess, and though she feels physically strong, after a few hours of activity a pressurized heat gathers in the front of her head that makes her dizzy and nauseous. Focusing her eyes for long periods of time is difficult, and if she's out in the sun or heat for too long it lands her back with that same strange ache in her head.

No one will say anything about it, but Gale, who now watches her with a deep intensity, tells her shortly that with her mother gone, there is no one left in all of Twelve who can help her. It's true.

And if she were to die, that would leave Prim all alone.

So there's nothing anyone could say, really. Nothing at all could be said. Except…

"Gale," she croaks one afternoon as they sit alone in his kitchen, "Don't let her starve, if I- if I-"

But even she can't say it. Can't make her lips form the words she knows could be true very soon. Gale mercifully cuts her off.

"You won't."

She nods numbly. There are words Gale hasn't said, but he doesn't need to. They stand between them like an unspoken pact.

You can't.

Their twin eyes meet, smoke and steel, in the heady darkness of his unlit kitchen and the shadowy, jealous part of her quakes with a fevered happiness. She and Gale- they belong to each other. They are sibling kits, with clever eyes, and steady silent gaits- twin predators in the dead silence of the forest. Two parts of the same whole. Whatever it was that souls were made of, Gale's and her's were the same.

She reaches her hand across the table to grab his, which is rough and dry and so large. These hands are her hands, they belong to her just as much as they are his. Mindlessly, their fingers twist together and Gale's breath, calm and steady, ghosts against her face.

"You won't," Gale says again. "I swear it."

Its a fruitless thing to promise, of course. And silly, even, for Gale to defy death, when it seemed to be coming for her day by day. His hand tightens around hers, though, and she lets herself believe that she believes him. It eases the sense of danger that hasn't really left her since Greasy Sae first told her the story of the fire that wiped Twelve clear off the map sixty years ago.

That night, her dream is a strange menagerie of shadowy, faceless figures set in a blazing purgatory… and Peeta Mellark's inquisitive blue gaze is trained on her, only her, as though she was the only thing in the world that existed. His mouth moves soundlessly, and she tries to memorize the forms his lips take, tries to decipher what it is that he is saying, but the everything around her turns to smoke.

She awakens with a start, breathing as though she's been running for hours, her head pounding with the strange burning pain that has by now become a familiar specter in her life. A low moan escapes her throat, lost on the slumbering occupants of the Hawthorne home.

One name sits on the tip of her tongue, and she can't bear to ask the question. If Peeta did not survive the fire, she does not want to know. She is afraid to think of what it would do to her, if she came to know he was dead. Her eyes slide shut again, and she slips gratefully into a heavy sleep with her next breath.

The next morning, nearly two weeks after the fire, she and Gale rise with the sun to hunt. They lope easily out of the house and down streets still coated in ash and dust, their matching gait punctuating the silence with light taps of boot against stone.

The first drop lands against the top of her head, and she's sure she's imagined it. But when a second falls, right on the tip of her nose, she turns in shock to Gale just as the sky above them opens up.

Gale starts to laugh- its a deep, throaty sound- and the moment is so absurd that she does as well. Alone in the dead of early morning, and soaked completely through their clothes, they stand laughing in the middle of the burned out remains of the Merchant-Seam divide, watching ash and dust turn to streams of mud before their very eyes.

He scoops her up, tugs her against his chest and holds her close. She opens her mouth and tilts her face upward, toward the sky, and heavy droplets plop on her face, into her mouth and trickle up her nose. It's sweet and cold, and she swallows and chokes all at once, trying not to spit it back out. Trying not to waste a single precious drop. Gale follows her lead, and they're pressed together, ridiculous grins plastered on their faces, collecting rain in their mouths like they're children.

He sets her down and she twirls, her arms wide, and lets the rain soak through her hair and clothes, washing the sweat and ash from her body onto the street below.

Feeling the weight of a gaze upon her, she stops, mid-twirl, and stares into the muggy haze. Her breath catches in her chest at the slumped figure standing in the doorway of one of the temporary residence structures built for merchants in the Seam.

Peeta survived after all.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I want to give a HUGE thank you to my wonderful beta Opaque, without whom I would have never gotten this finished! She's seriously amazing!
> 
> This story is part of a larger series I am working on titled 'Without', inspired by some of the most poisonous flowers in the world. I got the idea from Prompts in Panem about two weeks or so before the whole Flowers of Panem contest started, and it just stuck with me. Check out my profile to find out more about my 'Without' stories. This particular one should run something like 10 chapters.
> 
> Please take a moment, if you're so inclined, and let me know what you think!


	2. Hemlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have even less than they did before, but they're surviving. Each day they live is more than they could hope for.

**_ii._ **

 

* * *

 

The problems start when Gale reveals to her that her father's bow was lost in the fire. The words he uses are "never recovered"- as though there is a chance that the bow could still be out there, somewhere, buried in the ashes. As though ambiguous rewordings can dull the pain of losing one of the last pieces of her father she had left. If Gale meant to give her hope, he gravely miscalculated.

 

Hope is a dangerous thing, and she knows this well. Hope is her mother's lean, crumpled form in front of her bedroom window looking out onto the street below, burning their last candle to wait for a man who hadn't come home in years. Hope is the hunger in Prim's eyes when she returns from the forest, and hope is the hungry shell her sister becomes when she fails to bring anything home. Hope is bright eyes circled in dark swathes of skin, staring eagerly into the bakery window, and fading darker in resignation with every passing day. Katniss does not allow herself hope.

 

Except deep in that place that existed somewhere in the drowsy darkness between waking and sleep. Here, she thinks of bread: rich and dark, peppered with nuts and raisins, delivered by pale, shaking hands. A nervous smile and downcast eyes. The brush of heated skin against her own. Here, hope is bread- still warm as she swallows it without chewing, tears rolling down her face, and Prim's face too, as they devour it in giddy silence. She has one exception, the only one she will allow herself. Just this one.

 

"No Gale. Its gone," she says, with stone-faced finality.

 

He shoots her an aggravated glare and sighs.

 

"Don't be like that, Catnip. It's somewhere, and when they clear the rubble they'll find it."

 

"No, they won’t. And if they do, you know I can't claim it."

 

Gale rolls his eyes and tugs her forward.

 

"Well, bow or no bow, we still have to go out there today."

 

But Katniss doesn't want to go into the woods. She doesn't want to go anywhere. A vicious hollowness has stolen over her and all she wants is to curl up somewhere alone, somewhere small and quiet, and hide there until the treeline swallows the sun and everything becomes blessedly dark.

 

Gale's hand around her own is not the comfort it had been just days ago- now its suffocating and demanding. He's pulling her forward through the Seam, farther from the dark hole she aches to find and burrow in. Her stiff legs do their best to keep up, but they feel numb and jolt unpleasantly with every step. She nearly trips over the uneven pavement, and Gale's tight grasp is the only thing that keeps her from tumbling forward.

 

"Stop, Gale," she says, trying to tug her hand out of his, but he is too strong. He whips his head around and stares at her.

 

"What?" he says.

 

"Let me go," she hisses, trying to wrench her hand free. He opens his clenched fist in surprise, and her wrist throbs unpleasantly.

 

"What's wrong?" he says, his eyes searching hers.

 

She doesn't want him to touch her. Her skin crawls when he reaches out to brush his fingers against her cheek. She jerks her head back, just out of his reach.

 

"Don't touch me," she snaps.

 

He swallows roughly, his eyes darkening in anger.

 

"Fine," he grinds out through clenched teeth. "Then keep up. We're behind."

 

Though she doesn’t want to go anywhere with him, she knows he’s right. They have a family of seven to feed and the woods are nearly picked clean of what game survived the drought. If they want their family to eat tonight, they must move.

 

She follows his stiff form in sullen silence under the fence and through the woods.

 

"You gather," he says, tossing her the game bag. It knocks against her chest with a hollow _flump_ just as he as he turns to walk away, his own bow in hand. "I'll hunt."

 

She is a better shot and he knows it. He's just punishing her. Glaring heatedly at him as he slips into the darkness of the woods, she begins her search.

 

It quickly becomes apparent that whatever they do manage to bring home tonight will not be enough. She has picked over this section of the woods before, and nothing much remains. Desperation drives her to clear the area of what little is left: raspberry leaves to dry for tea, a few tiny green garlic bulbs, and some wilting pokeweed.

 

With the hope that another area will have more to gather, she pads towards the lake, her bag’s hollow knock against her back echoing in her ears. Focused intently on her task, she doesn't notice how intense her thirst is until her throat refuses to swallow without catching. She coughs and her fingers slip into her pocket to reach for her bottle. She greedily finishes off what's left, but that doesn't quench her thirst. The pressure in her head is back, and its building rapidly as her eyes unfocus and the ground tilts below her feet. Though the dappled forest light flashes dizzyingly around her, she forces herself to move forward.

 

'Find one more thing,' she thinks. 'And then you can rest.'

 

Where its light, its too light. Where the shadows lie, its too dark to make out anything. She fumbles through the brush, hands running over the tops of plants. If there was any game in the area before, there certainly won't be now. It doesn't matter, though, because she can barely stand, let alone give chase.

 

She sways where she stands, suddenly and disconcertingly too far from the ground to keep herself upright.

 

Where is she? Has she ever been to this part of the forest before?

 

'One more thing. Almost done.'

 

A brush of tiny, white flowers against her fingers catches her eye and her heart soars. It's Queen Anne's Lace, whose roots are hearty and sweet like carrots, if a little sour. They'll do well enough.

She greedily digs out the root as the ache in her head throbs viciously. A strange shimmer dances at the edge of her vision, like water reflecting off a pool, and though she whips her head to find it, she knows that its not real.

 

'Almost…'

 

The bulbs are difficult to tug free, especially with her fingers moving so feebly against the soil, but she pushes forward. Her nails scrape a root, pulling some of the flesh of the bulb back with them.

 

'Almost, almost, al-'

 

"KATNISS!," Gale cries, startlingly her. She drops the roots and turns around to face him. His face is horrified.

 

"What?," she barks, the word slurring slightly.

 

"What are you doing? That's water hemlock!"

 

Is it?

 

She looks down at her fingers still knuckle deep in the soil.

 

Its the last thing she remembers.

  

* * *

 

Running. Something scraping against her legs. Hands on her face. Something bright shining in her eye.

 

Prim, talking in a hushed but steady voice.

 

Then nothing.

  

* * *

 

Seizure.

 

The word tastes woody and stiff, like 'Sorry' or 'Don't', when it spits out of her mouth. She'd seen them before, when miners with head wounds came to her mother. Foaming mouths, bloody tongues, or vacant blank eyes.

 

At first she doesn’t know where she is, and it takes both Prim and Gale to convince her that she has been hurt, and yes, she has to lie down. When the world starts to right itself, she is startled to find a coppery taste in her mouth. And then she smells it on her breath- old blood.

 

It's then that she resigns herself. Gale refuses to let her come back to the woods with him, and she doesn't even try to argue.

 

A hollowness takes root in her chest and doesn't leave.

 

Prim brushes her hair gently, changes the bandage that crosses her skull with nimble fingers, and talks through her boorish silence with a lilting tone. It eats her alive.

 

She takes up washing with Hazel. It's not enough.

 

The food on the table dwindles. She takes less for herself.

 

She tries to sign on to a construction team and Rory drags her back kicking and screaming at Gale's request. She is inconsolable, and tears into Gale with a maliciousness she knows is mostly directed at herself. His eyes burn darkly as he shoves her down on her cot.

 

"Don't be an idiot, Katniss," he sneers. It hurts so bad that for once it is Prim who has to hold her as she cries.

 

The one thing that brightens her listless mood is that no one has come looking for she and sister to put them in the group home. Maybe with the reconstruction in full swing, nobody has time to check in on the Everdeen girls. Or maybe the fire left enough orphans that they couldn't take more if they wanted to.

 

Weeks pass. She and Gale take out tesserae every opportunity they get, grimly lugging home the tasteless grain in resolute silence. Her headaches come less frequently when she drinks water, limits her time in the sun, and sleeps well. She tries to do that, more for Prim than for herself. An uneasy equilibrium is reached. They have even less than they did before, but they're surviving. Each day they live is more than they could hope for.

 

The merchant quarter is rebuilt in record time, and by September's end very little is left to do. School starts right on schedule. The four Hawthorne siblings and the Everdeen sisters trudge forward on the first day of school with threadbare pants and hollow stomachs.

 

She notices right away that Peeta Mellark is not there. He does not come the next day, or the next. On Friday Madge Undersee turns to her during lunch and asks her if she knows anything about where he was.

 

Her brow knits together forcefully.

 

"How should I know?" she hisses. Madge blinks owlishly and says nothing in return.

 

"I've never even spoken to him."

 

Madge opens up her sandwich and picks the cheese out, eating it slowly. She doesn't meet Katniss' heated glare.

 

"And anyway, its not like I keep up with Merchant gossip."

 

Katniss spits out 'merchant' like a cuss, and Madge flinches at this and stands abruptly, her food still spread out on the table.

 

"Eat it," the girl whispers, her voice trembling. "I don't want anymore." She stands and then flees the lunchroom, without turning back once. Katniss isn't hungry anymore, but wasted food is so abhorrent to her, especially now, that she carefully repacks the food and dumps it in her own lunch pail.

 

Rumors abound about Peeta. He seems to be all anyone can talk about, besides from the fire. The stories she hears range from fantastical to credible, but there's one aspect that is consistent, one part that seems to be a known fact: he is the only Mellark left.

 

Her stomach twists horribly whenever she thinks of him now, so she tries her best not to. Tries her best to box him up and pack him away. She tries to wash his name away in cloudy suds of laundry water, or lose it in the bleary jumble of words of her course work by candlelight.

 

It is no use, though, none at all, because the harder she tries to forget him, the more he burns himself into her mind. The desolate slump of his posture, sagging weakly against the wall, dogs her every step. He’s a ghost- following her through school, the washing with Hazel, and even through homework with Prim, and so she truly means it that night when she says "I'm not hungry" to a table full of starving people. Prim looks at her skeptically and raises a palm to her forehead.

 

"You're a little warm, Katniss. You feel ok?"

 

"No," she says weakly, surprised to find that she's telling the truth. She is anything but ok. "I need to lie down."

 

Gale frowns slightly.

 

"We'll save you something," he murmurs.

 

"No. Please don't," she says. "I don't want to waste it. My stomach-" She presses a palm against her taught belly. "-I don't think I'll keep it down."

 

Gale nods, his heavy gaze softening as he looks at her.

 

"I'll be in to check on you soon," he says, worry evident in his tone.

 

She fairly collapses on her stiff cot, her eyes sliding shut immediately. Hot tears ease out from under her lids and splash over the bridge of her nose onto the sheets below. If Gale does come to check on her, she misses it. She's asleep before the wetness on her face has dried.

 

* * *

 

The next morning she wakes early to Gale and Hazel murmuring softly in the kitchen. The thud of mugs against the table and the light clink of metal against bowls veil their words, but she hears enough to piece together what they are saying. They’re talking about her.

 

‘... Prim said once isn’t enough to worry about...,’ Gale utters. Hazel sighs something in response.

 

‘....we’ll have to see. More than once could be serious…’

 

Their hushed conversation conjures memories of a past life with two parents and an infant sister. A life in a green forest with her tall Papa, and his strong bow. A life without fire and drought and headaches. She lets herself dream of it, and hopes she will not remember any of it when she finally wakes up.

 

Losing it once had been hard enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big big big thank you to my wonderful Beta Opaque!
> 
> Coming up next time on 'Running Dry':
> 
> "The scent that greets her makes her knees buckle, and she grips the side of a counter to keep herself upright. There’s butter, fresh bread, vanilla, brown sugar and cinnamon, and a thousand other things that are at once warm and so sweet. She bites her lip to quell the whimper that threatens to escape from her, but she can't stop the roll and growl of her stomach that echoes brazenly against the shining new bakery equipment.
> 
> Peeta smiles and its so pained its nearly a grimace. He moves quickly, fetching her a chair and placing it behind her.
> 
> "Here- sit down. You don't look-" he swallows roughly, his eyes landing on her shaking hands. "-you don't look so good."


	3. Investment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something strange burns in her veins- its hot and bottomless and makes her hands fist and pricks the skin at the back of her neck. He steps close to her, averting his eyes from the other women on the street.
> 
> "Katniss- come away from there," he pleads quietly, his voice crackling. "Please."

_**iii.** _

* * *

The morning of October first brings a squall, in more ways than one. Wind and rain batter the Hawthorne's home, lit dimly with what little oil they can spare for the lamps to get the washing done, while Rory and Gale bellow at each other from across the kitchen. Katniss drops her pounding head against her sisters lap on her cot, while the younger girl gently unwinds her braid and runs her cool, tiny fingers through her hair.

Katniss sighs deeply, pressing her lips together and willing the ache in her head not to get any worse. Her head has been in a doldrum for hours, and finally she can't even keep her eyes open without her stomach turning. Prim checks the wound on her temple, now just a pink flash of healing skin.

Removing her braid helped. Prim's willow bark tea does too. But by late morning the pain is infinitely worse and Prim struggles to help her out the backdoor so she can finally expel the contents of her stomach. The acarid bite of bile lingers in her mouth and nose as rain washes her vomit away in rivulets of mud. Prim stands over her, already soaking in her thin cotton dress, as she rubs her back in slow circles.

"-YOU CAN'T TELL ME WE DON'T NEED IT-"

Rory's voice filters out to them, even through the roar of the wind.

"-TOMORROW. AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME, GALE JACOB HAWTHORNE."

The front door slams and there's a beat of silence before they hear glass shatter against a wall. Prim hugs her tiny body against her back, and their warmth combines in the frigid rain.

She is humming softly a song they both know well.

Her stomach again clenches tightly and her eyes water. Back bowed grotesquely, she whimpers and then heaves. Nothing leaves her but more bile, sticky and yellow, then muddy, then washed away and gone.

Prim hums louder and pets her wet hair back from her forehead, and the words to the song catch in Katniss' mind.

"-here is the place where I love you."

It sticks with her as she dutifully downs the willow bark and chamomile tea Prim prepares for her, reopening the yawning chasm of helplessness that formed within her when Rory told Gale he was taking a tesserae ration that morning, sparking the argument that raged all day.

There was nothing she could do. Nothing she had left. Nothing until the mines, just a year from now for Gale, and three for her.

She falls into a numb sleep by late afternoon to the steady rhythm of rain falling against the window. The storm peters out by nightfall, and once again she skips dinner. Nobody says anything though- it would be cruel to after she had spent most of her day emptying her stomach in the first place.

In the dark quiet of the room she shares with Posy, Prim and Hazel, she runs her fingertips along the bones jutting out of her hips, the dip of her stomach, and the prominence of her ribs. Her tiny breasts sit proudly atop her chest, but they're hardly anything at all. They don't even fill her small palm.

When the house is quiet she steals away into the night.

She understands, finally, the kind of desperation that drives women into the darkness and then to strange beds. It was the shadowed hollows of a starving child's cheeks. The awful gulf of helpless rage that strands you so far from the rest of the world.

Gale had been so kind, and Hazel too, for taking them in. So had Rory and Vick, for sharing without complaint. But Prim was so thin she could fit into eight year old Posy's clothing easily, and no one else was faring much better.

She couldn't let Rory take out a tesserae- not after everything Gale had done to prevent it. She couldn't let that happen.

A year ago, she would have had the means to prevent it. The specter of her father's bow ghosts against her calloused hands, and she fists them in response, digging her blunts nails into the pillowy skin of her palms. That bow had stood between her family and starvation for years.

Now it was gone.

It was useless to imagine a world where her bow was never lost. Useless to think of all the ways she could be using it now. Useless to let herself feel so frustrated and helpless without it.

So she doesn't. She puts one foot in front of the other, and she moves forward.

Its not a decision, and she's not scared. Its just the next logical step, the next part of the progression of her life. Like the first tooth she lost. Like the first time blood trickled down from between her legs, shocking her mother to tears. Like the first tesserae she took out.

She tries to focus on what will come after- the rough press of coins in her hand, the pavement under her boots as she runs home, fresh cold air rushing at her face and biting in her lungs. She thinks of a time maybe two weeks from now, three even, when the memory of this has faded, or she's successfully pushed it so far back inside of her that it's almost gone.

She tries to live in a future where this is just a memory.

Then she thinks of putting the money in Hazel's hands, watching the soft, lined skin around her eyes crinkle in confusion. Maybe Hazel wouldn't ask where it came from. If she did, she will tell her that she stole it. Or maybe she wouldn't say anything at all, just shoot her a look that will damn her own mother and every way that she failed them. Hazel would see it and understand because Hazel would know what she did.

She needs to stop her hands from trembling, to find the stillness in her that clears everything else away but what comes next.

She finds her next breath and pushes it out before she can forget the rhythm of breathing.

Growing up, she and Prim had a toy- it was a wooden barrel with animals whose arms interlocked. You were meant to grab one and pull it up, and count how many more rose with it. 'That's what fear is,' she thinks. 'You see someone rising and without thinking you lock arms with them and feel your feet leave the ground.' That's what she feels now- her arms interlocked with six other people as they are jerked from one tragedy to the next.

And that's how she's here, standing in the line of women standing in the dim lamplight of Cray's newly built house. This is just the next step in a long series of carefully choreographed dances she'll have to be a part of through the rest of her life. This is Twelve, and she is from the Seam. Though Madge might flinch to hear it, this is what the world was for those not lucky enough to be born into the ranks of the Merchant class.

She would take what goodness the world has given her- like Primrose, like Rory, like Vick and Posy- and preserve it where she could, however she could.

The women look everywhere but at each other. They don't talk. But Katniss raises her chin off of her chest and looks straight ahead. When that door opened, she would meet Cray's eyes.

Her palms are sweaty, and she's trembling, but its no longer with fear.

'Only one family will eat tonight, and if it's mine then I'm damning someone else to starve.' A door cracks open and light floods the street, a slant of it falling across her face. 'District 12 is a pen, and all of us in it are pigs,' she thinks. 'We may not get reaped, but we're all a tribute at some point.'

But it's not Cray's door that's opened- its the door of the building across the street. Silhouetted in the blue-white industrial light is someone she knows.

She stares for a moment, shocked into stillness.

'Oh no,' she thinks. 'Not him.'

He stares too, as if he's not sure of what he's seeing.

"Katniss?"

Peeta's voice is soft, but it sounds so loud in the silence of the street that she flinches.

She rips her gaze away and faces forward, eyes trained ahead. He steps forward out of the light- she can hear his footsteps on the cement. Her jaw clenches furiously, and she refuses to look at him.

"Katniss?," he asks again. He steps further into the road and she grinds her teeth.

'Go away,' she thinks. 'Just go away.'

Something strange burns in her veins- its hot and bottomless and makes her hands fist and pricks the skin at the back of her neck. He steps close to her, averting his eyes from the other women on the street.

"Katniss- come away from there," he pleads quietly, his voice crackling. "Please."

She turns and looks into Peeta Mellark's strained face and shakes her head once. He moves even closer still, his hand rising as if to touch her, then falling and twitching uselessly at his side.

"Please," he chokes. "I'll- I'll pay you. I'll give you money. Food. Whatever. Just, please Katniss, come away from there. Please."

She jerks her head up and narrows her eyes at him. One bed is as good as another, she supposes. If said bed belonged to a boy her own age, she should count herself as lucky. She doesn't think about who this boy is- what he did. That will make all of this much more confusing and she's afraid if she thinks too hard about it, she won't be able to do it. And she needs to. Her stomach knots painfully.

'Move,' she thinks. 'Just move.'

So she steps out from the line and follows him through the door and into the back of the new bakery, and she doesn't think about the fact that its the Boy with the Bread that she's following.

The scent that greets her in the bakery makes her knees buckle, and she grips the side of a counter to keep herself upright. There's butter, bread, vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon and a thousand other things that are at once warm and so sweet. She bites her lip to quell the whimper that threatens to escape from her, but she can't stop the roll and growl of her stomach that echoes brazenly against the shining new bakery equipment.

Peeta smiles and its so pained its nearly a grimace. He moves quickly, fetching her a chair and placing it behind her.

"Here- sit down. You don't look-" he swallows roughly, his eyes landing on her shaking hands, "-you don't look so good."

Why he would bring a chair for a prostitute (Another woody, bitter word) evades her- especially one he considers not "good looking". Perhaps he was hoping to pay her less. Perhaps that was why, out of a line of women with passably pretty faces and full busts, he chose the thinnest.

She collapses on the chair, sinking her spine gratefully against its back, and her legs quake with the remnants of the adrenaline that sponsored her trip from the Seam. Try though she might, she cannot stop the shivers the roll through her, or the tap of her molars against one another that sound loudly in the silent kitchen.

"Wait here," Peeta breathes. "I'll be right back."

He means to do it here then.

Leaning forward, she unlaces her boots and tugs them off, lining them neatly next to her chair. She forces herself to stand on her weak legs and grinds her teeth against the eruption of pain and heat in the front of her head.

'Not now,' she thinks. 'Wait until I am finished, and then you can have me.' She moves to peel her thin dress over her head, but her hands are shaking violently and she ends up just gripping the hem in useless, leaden fists. Her cheeks flame hot and that deep, queasy feeling from before- shame- bubbles viciously within her.

His footsteps thump in the hall. Her eyes dart down.

Small breasts. Loose hair hanging limply over her her shoulders, ending in ragged tails by her hips. Her hands fisted in the fabric of her dress, knuckles white as bone and just as stiff. It inches the dress up her thighs, revealing the very tops of her threadbare black stockings, a black cotton that has faded to murky gray over years of washings. Just a flash of the bare skin of her thighs is visible and still horror floods her like a swelling tide. Light-headed and trembling, she locks her knees and grits her teeth, willing her legs to keep her upright.

When Peeta enters the room, she raises her chin in proud defiance. Just another step forward. She thinks distractedly of Posy's hunger-darkened eyes. Prim's scrawny arms.

Peeta's eyes widen in shock, his face flushes wildly, and he very nearly drops the plate of food in his hands.

He averts his gaze, training it intently on the floor, and draws a singular, ragged breath.

"Katniss, stop."

The words strike her like a blow. He is turning her down. They would starve. Her eyes prick hotly, but she refuses to cry.

Rory.

She can't give up. She tilts her chin back up, trying to catch his evasive eyes.

"You don't have to pay. Food would be fine," she croaks.

"Katniss, don't. I don't want-"

"I have nothing else to trade," she says, her voice cracking. "Just- just this. So, take it, because I can't go home empty handed."

Her vision blurs suddenly as tears build and bead out of her eyes, splashing hot and wet against her cheeks and catching on her chin.

Peeta sets the plate on the table, and throws a blanket she hadn't see him holding earlier over his shoulder. With his eyes resolutely trained on the floor, he grabs her hands and unfurls the fingers clutching the hem of her dress. Wrinkled and sweaty, it falls back down over her stockinged knees.

"I'll give you whatever you need," he says, exhaustion lining his voice. "You're not going to do this."

For the first time since she had seen him leaning against that doorframe, she looks at him. He seems older- ashen and drained, as though someone had leeched the color from him. Though his eyes are wide- 'Is he frightened?'- they are bloodshot and glassy.

"I told you I have nothing else to trade."

Peeta shakes his head, gaze still averted.

"I don't want anything from you."

Pins and needles prick at her fingers and she flexes her hands to relieve the tension.

"Why are you doing this?," she whispers brokenly.

"You know why," he says slowly, quietly, as he wraps the blanket around her shoulders. "You have to know why."

But she doesn't. She has no idea, and the more she tries to make sense of it the more absurd it all seems.

"I don't like secrets, Mellark."

Peeta laughs sadly and shakes his head.

"It's hardly a secret."

"I don't understand- I can't repay you. You can't just give this to me," she says, waving at the food he set down on the counter.

He smirks. She wonders at how the same expression on Gale's face would read as haughty, but on Peeta's its simply boyish self-satisfaction.

"Yes, in fact, I can," he says. "And I'll give you more, too."

Its her turn to stare in shock.

"I can't- You- I don't have anything to trade you," she repeats dumbly. There is a catch here. He is waiting to spring it on her, waiting until she can't refuse. But she already won't refuse him a single thing for that basket of food. In that basket is Prim's life. The lives of Gale and his family. Her own life.

"What if there was something you could trade me, besides-," he glances away and doesn't finish.

"Like what?"

"I need- I need help, here. It's just me, and frankly, it's too much. I need someone I can trust. I could hire you. I'd pay you whatever you needed."

She frowns.

"I can't bake."

"That's ok- you don't have to. I'll bake, and you can clean, and take care of the customers."

"People don't like me."

"You just have a, um,  _unique_  kind of charm."

She can't stop the rye grin spreading on her face. If there is one thing she definitely is not, it is charming.

"Come on," he says, with a grin of his own. "It's a fair deal."

That is a lie. The food on the table costs far more than a weeks worth of wages and he knows it.

"No, it's not."

Peeta rubs his neck, flushing. Did he think she didn't realize the value of the food on the table? She made her living calculating values.

"Well, ok. It's not. But, to me it is. Think of this-," he says, gesturing toward the basket of food, "as an investment."

"An investment in what?"

"You," he says simply, but the intonation sends a wild heat through her veins and a shiver down her spine. The movement of his lips shaping the word is like a promise.

She trusts it implicitly.

* * *

Hazel weeps openly when she finds Katniss asleep at the kitchen table that morning- the basket of food nestled next to her head. She knows that Hazel knows how she came to be in the bakery that night, but the older woman stays mercifully silent. A look of understanding passes between the two women, and Katniss is sure she sees something other than knowledge in her eyes- something like sorrow.

And shame.

Just another secret swept deftly under the rug in the Hawthorne home.

For all his bluster, Rory, nearly his brother's height and just as powerfully built, ends up weeping in her arms when he wakens that morning to find their kitchen table laden heavy with rich bakery bread and fruit.  _Real fruit._

Gale's bloodshot gaze locks on her as she holds Rory and her stomach lurches in shock. His eyes burn with a strange intensity she'd never seen before, but the meaning behind it escapes her. She searches his tired face and tense body for some kind of clue, anything to tune her in to what was going on in his mind. But he tears his eyes from hers and turns away, hiding his hands in his pockets and effectively closing himself off from her searching gaze.

_She wonders if he knows._

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This was tough to get through, but Im really happy with it, and its all thanks to my wonderful beta Opaque!
> 
> And thanks to all the wonderful souls who reviewed the last chapter, you guys are phenomenal! 
> 
> When I get stuck writing, I sometimes get into character by writing a drabble from a character's point of view. If you're interested in drabbles from the 'Running Dry' universe, you can find them on my tumblr yesscoolverygoodok dot tumblr dot com. Eventually I'm thinking about putting them together as an outtakes chapter at the end, but Ill be posting them as I write them on my tumblr.
> 
> And now, a sneak preview of Chapter 4:
> 
> "I've been reading Mom's books," Prim says softly. "Because we're so low on your tea. One of them said rubbing your head would help." Katniss has to lock her jaw to keep from whimpering in relief when Prim runs her cold fingers through the roots of her hair. It does help, just a little, and Prim keeps going long after Katniss' eyes droop shut.
> 
> "I wish it wasn't this way," Prim says, and she doesn't know how to respond because it is this way, whether or not they like it.
> 
> "Better me than you," she says thickly, and realizes there is something that she hasn't said yet to her sister, but she needs to.
> 
> "I'm sorry Prim. About Mom."


	4. Twice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta stoops to pick it up before she can chase it, and that something pulses happily as his fingers close around the pink skin of the fruit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, none of this would have ever gotten done without my wonderful beta, Opaque! Seriously, she's amazing!

_**iv.** _

* * *

_Seizure_.

It happens again the night before she begins her work at the bakery. Blessedly, she is alone. Had anyone else witnessed it, she would have been forced to stay in bed for days.

She can't afford that. None of them can.

As if the situation isn't cruel enough, for a single desperate moment afterward, when she is confused as to how she came to be on the floor, and she thinks she is home. She thinks she hears her mother in the kitchen, and wonders when her father would be home from work. Its the sweetest torture- for just the blink of an eye, the ragged wound left behind by her fathers death is stitched back together.

As the fog in her mind lifts, the need to travel back to that moment is so raw she shoves her palm into her mouth, biting down and keening soundlessly into the flesh. Her throat contracts tightly as she turns on her side and curls up tightly on her cot.

Through the pounding of blood in her head she hears the clatter of dishes echoing from the kitchen, and little Posy's tuneless voice carries through the house. It's like a torch in her darkness, drawing her forward, suffusing her with a sobering mix of surrender and determination. Her mind clears and she breathes as deeply as she can.

'You can't,' she tells herself. 'Get up. Move.'

_'More than once could be serious...', Gale had said._

Well, Gale be damned. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt any of them, and she decides then and there that no one, especially not Prim, ever had to know that it happened twice.

She continues her nightly routine as though nothing is wrong, schooling her face into a blank mask, ignoring her sore muscles. They eat and she is quiet, but not too quiet. She helps Vick with his homework. Washes dishes. Avoids everyone's gaze. By no means is she a great actress, but if anyone notices something is wrong, they don't comment.

It has been a few nights since her midnight trip to the Merchant quarter and Gale has been sullen and distant ever since. Ironically, this is working to her advantage tonight, as he is the only person in the house who can tell immediately when she is lying and he is too busy avoiding her to notice that she is hiding something. Tonight he is moodier than he has been all week- sitting stoney-faced by the fireplace and glaring down at his hands as he whittles arrow shafts out of a squat cedar branch he dragged home.

He pretends not to notice when she slips away early to bed, but she catches his eyes flicker over to her as she leaves the kitchen. Ultimately, its good that she does go to sleep early, because it feels as though she is only asleep for a moment before she is awake and trudging down the winding dirt roads of the Seam toward the paved streets of the Merchant Quarter.

The brisk darkness of early morning eases some of her anxiety- her solitude is as rare as it is precious, and she relishes the opportunity to stretch her legs before most of the District is even awake. When she arrives at the bakery, the back door is flung wide open and light beams out onto the freshly paved walkway. The scent drifting from the kitchen is warm with yeast and vanilla. It's like an invitation, she thinks.

Peeta looks exhausted, but he is waiting for her with twin mugs of steaming black tea set out on the work table, and all manner of ingredients have already been measured out for the day's baking. His smile is gentle and a little crooked.

"Hi," he says, his voice husky. He clears his throat. "Not too early for you, right?"

She shakes her head, but a yawn escapes her anyway. His grin widens and and he nudges the tea across the table toward her.

"Don't worry- you'll get used to it," he says, and begins to combine ingredients in a huge, shining vat, above which hangs what looks a motorized spade. "Drink up- we'll get started when you're done."

She waits until he turns around before she pinches some willowbark out of her pocket and drops it in her tea. It swirls in the steaming liquid lazily, and its woody scent drifts into her nose and her stomach turns unpleasantly. Her head is ok now. How long will that last?

She scowls as she nudges the wood scrapings under the water with quick jabs of her fingers, and is grateful that Peeta is too busy with the giant vat to notice her fiddling with her tea. Her hands are uncomfortably sweaty and she wipes them on her pants.

What would he say if he knew what had happened last night?

What would Gale say? Or Prim?

She nearly chokes on the steaming liquid when her chest tightens so roughly in fear that she swears every ounce of air has left her.

No one can know.

_'Not ever.'_

She clunks her drained mug on the table, and her eyes flicker to Peeta as he turns around to retrieve a bowl of what looks like mealy, speckled flour from the table.

"Done?" he asks.

She nods, a dark wisp of hair falling against her cheek. He watches as she tucks it safely back behind ear.

"Let's get started then."

The bakery is smaller than she had imagined, and every inch of space is packed with air-tight aluminum containers of different grains, flours and spices. The smaller containers are stored on shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling, while larger containers are stored underneath the industrial steel work table in the center of the kitchen. She isn't sure what she was expecting, but it hadn't been this. The kitchen is cold and sterile, and the blue-white buzz of the lighting sets her teeth on edge.

Peeta's friendly smile seems uncanny in contrast. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his forearms, and as he explains the differences between flours to her, she catches the puckered, pink trails of healing burn scars on the insides of his wrists. As though he sensed her gaze, he tugs his sleeves down without once breaking his train of thought. It's casual and understated, an action that could have been mistaken for habit. Only through repeated practice could he have perfected this gesture.

The rest of her first shift passes in a blur of unfamiliarity and she barely remembers what he tells her about managing the customers and register. As the sun inches over the horizon, the industrial ovens in the next room roar to life. The whir of their fans is loud and pulses slowly as the temperature of the shop rises despite the open doors. Her head spins drowsily.

The beginnings of a headache have blossomed by the end of her shift, and she's relieved when Peeta comes to thank her and tell her that she is free to go and he will see her in the afternoon. Despite the heat, both of his shirt sleeves are pulled over his wrists.

Gale is waiting for her against the back door when she exits the shop, staring blankly at his scuffed boots. He frowns when he sees her, his brow tightening in concern.

"You don't look so good Catnip."

Its the first thing he's said to her all week.

"I'm ok," she says. "Let's go."

She weaves a little unsteadily and Gale moves to grab her arm, but she shrugs him off and pulls away.

"I said I was ok, Gale."

"Fine," he bites out, running a hand through his hair in irritation. "Just- fine."

They walk to school in silence.

* * *

Days pass in a chaotic jumble. As the weather gets colder, her headaches get worse. She hides it as best as she can, but the third week in October brings the first cold snap and the air is so clear that the sun shines brighter than it did all summer, and her headaches increase in frequency until they are near constant. Prim's willowbark stash dwindles. She tries to make do with the Capitol's bland black tea and raspberry leaves, but the Hawthorne household is cramped and, with three growing boys, loud.

Rory and Gale are at each other's throats more often than not. Rory is anxious to get out into the forest, but Gale is not as keen to have him tag along. She has no idea why- with Gale all but physically restraining her from joining him they are down to whatever meat he can drag back on his own. Gale is strong, but he's not strong enough to carry back game for seven people, and still save enough to trade. Katniss' paycheck from the bakery is substantial, and she gets bread to take home besides, so at the very least they're not starving. Still, they can't survive on bread alone.

It's Thursday evening and she has stumbled home, the roar and heat of the ovens, the clamor of pans and the white hot electric lighting from the bakery still buzzing in her mind. Prim notices her lack of balance immediately and tugs her through the door, relieving her of her bag and leading her carefully to her cot. Gently, as though she were handling delicate china, she unknots the cord holding Katniss' braid and untangles the strands of hair.

"I've been reading Mom's books," Prim says softly. "Because we're so low on your tea. One of them said rubbing your head might help."

Katniss has to lock her jaw to keep from whimpering in relief when Prim runs her cold fingers through the roots of her hair. It does help, just a little, and Prim keeps going long after Katniss' eyes droop shut.

"I wish it wasn't this way," Prim says, and she doesn't know how to respond because it is this way, whether or not they like it.

"Better me than you," she answers thickly, and realizes there is something that she hasn't said yet to her sister, but she needs to.

"I'm sorry Prim. About Mom."

"Don't apologize Katniss. I think we may have lost Mom when Dad…"

Prim's fingers pause for a moment, then she sniffles.

"But Katniss, you're the best sister- ever. Really."

Katniss swallows and smiles.

"You too little duck. The best."

A crash from the kitchen startles both of them, and Gale's muted voice, angry and low, drifts in to them.

"They're fighting again," Prim whispers. "They always fight now."

Katniss sighs deeply and rubs her eyes. Sitting up, she twists her hair and pulls it over her shoulder. She smiles weakly at Prim.

"Wait here, ok? I'm going to take care of it."

"Ok," Prim says, and straightens out Katniss' pillow cover nervously.

She treads silently down the hall, pausing in the shadows by the doorway into the kitchen.

Gale is redfaced and frowning fiercely at an equally flustered Rory.

"-talking to Madge Undersee last week!

"Dammit Rory, what have I told you about-"

"If you think whatever you were talking about with her is more important than teaching me how to take care of the family then you're the one who's irrational," Rory sneers. "And you're being ridiculous about this. Katniss won't care! She's as confused as I am as to why you're so damn hard-headed about it!"

"Fine, dammit, fine. You wanna know why? I don't want to watch my baby brother get whipped- thats why. Katniss could take care of herself- she's- she was incredible out there- and because it was my time with her. It was my place, with her. And I just- everything changed after her head- its like-"

"Gale, nothing has changed except you! She's not going to just up and die, she's fine..."

"You didn't see her!" explodes Gale. "You didn't see when it happened! I thought for sure that she was-"

Gale can't continue. He runs a hand over his face and paces like a caged animal.

"And then she went and tried to- she never would have, if it weren't for us-" Gale swallows. Breaths. Opens his mouth.

_He knew._

She steps into the light of the kitchen.

"Take him."

Gale's head snaps in her direction and Rory gapes at her.

"Take him," she repeats, her face blank. "To the woods."

"Katniss I'm not going to-"

Before he can finish, and before she knows what she is doing, she has Gale pinned against the wall with her arm across his throat. Gale is not small by any means- towering well over six feet, he dwarfs her on the best of days. It could only have been total shock that allowed her to get him against the wall. He doesn't move- his dark eyes are watchful but angry and glittering dangerously in the dim lamplight.

"Do it," she snarls through her teeth.

He swallows lightly and she feels the contraction of the muscles in his throat against her arm. When he nods his head, just slightly, she lowers her arm and moves away. As she leaves the kitchen, she looks quickly to Rory, who is pale and looking anxiously between them.

Her eyes narrow at Gale in warning.

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to.

_Gale knows a threat when he sees one._

* * *

"That went well," Peeta says with a smirk. They are just closing up and Katniss had predictably failed to make their last customer of the day a happy one. It's not her fault they sold out of whole grain by noon, if the woman wanted it and knew they always sold out early, why did she show up five minutes before they closed? Maybe Katniss should have kept that last thought to herself.

She groans and drops her face in her hands.

"You heard that?" she mumbles through her fingers.

He laughs and shakes his head. His arms are sunk to the elbows in a sink the size of a kitchen table, where baking pans and mixing bowls are stacked precariously and soaking in dishwashing solution. He turns his back to task, but she gets the feeling his attention is still fully trained on her.

"Well don't say I didn't warn you. I'm horrible with people," she says.

He chuckles lightly.

"Hey, be as horrible as you want. Its not like they can go anywhere else. Plus-", He looks over his shoulder at her and she can see his eyes crinkling in laughter, "-she deserved it."

_Peeta is kind of funny._

In spite of how much she hates the suffocating heat and sterility of the bakery, she doesn't mind the work so much when she's around him. Which is good, because working in a bakery isn't easy. It's heavy labor, and the hours are long. She helps him prep and open before dawn, and runs the shop in the afternoon when school is over. More often than not she is past exhausted by the end of the day. How Peeta had managed to run a bakery alone for weeks on end eludes her, especially since what he seems to really enjoy is human interaction, and he had spent most of his time in the bakery alone. It must have been soul-crushing for a boy who had spent so much of his life surrounded by family and friends.

How did he do it?

She discovers, as is often the case with rumors, the truth is far less interesting, and Peeta's story after the fire is no different.

Though Thistle McCullough insisted that he had lost a leg, and Amanda Gulch claimed he was completely covered in burn scars, and James Holmquist told anyone who would listen that Peeta had actually set the fire in the first place, she is not surprised to learn that nearly every rumor she had heard about him had been just that- a rumor.

What is true is that his family is dead, and the Capitol had seen fit to pull him out of school, as he was the last person in Twelve who could operate the enormous industrial machines in the bakery. From sun up to sun down six days a week, it became the sole responsibility of a sixteen year old boy to bake for an entire district.

On a crisp Friday morning nearly two weeks into her work at the bakery, just as the sun was peeking in through the shop window, she sneaks an appraising glance at him and notes with some alarm that she can see bone-deep exhaustion in his glassy stare and sloped shoulders. She wonders if this place has become a prison for him.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

She realizes she has been staring at him just as she notices that the smile doesn't quite reach his eyes, which are darkly shadowed and red rimmed. His skin is pale- even for a Merchant, and especially for the very beginning of Autumn- and a little gray. Why doesn't he talk about his family? She had never even seen him upset. Doesn't he miss them? He must- he must miss his brothers at least. It had been a hard year for everyone, but especially for those who lost someone in the fire.

And Peeta had lost his entire family.

The rising sun coats his face in dusky amber light, highlighting at once the fairness of his thick curls, the dark shadows lining his eyes, and the angled cut of his strong jaw.

She grabs a loaf of bread and shoves it roughly into the case.

"Nothing," she mumbles.

"Then at least I got something right today," he mumbles.

She blinks at him, her lip twitching, and then she laughs. It's Peeta's turn to flush, as though he is just realizing what came out of his mouth. His eyes brighten a little though, the tiredness in his face fades as he grins. As he stands and his shoulders square, she gets the fleeting impression of a quiet strength, something like freezing water rushing under thick ice. He's well-built, but not the way the wiry young men from the Seam are. Not the way Gale is. His arms are thick and sturdy, with just a dusting of white-blond hair, and his hands are broad and powerful. He's not very tall- Gale is easily a foot taller than Peeta is, but that isn't saying much. Gale is taller than nearly everyone, just like his father before him.

Hazel said she could always find Gale's father in a crowd- his was usually the tallest, handsomest head around. Posy laughs when she says this, and asks her how in the world a head could be handsome, but Hazel just winks and says, "I thought every inch of your Papa was handsome- but especially his head."

"You'd better get going," Peeta says, his voice interrupting her thoughts, before turning away from her to grab a tray on the counter. "School starts soon. Don't want you to be late."

She nods mutely and stands, vibrating with an excited, unnameable something. It beats a dreamy cadence in her veins and she feels a little light-headed. It's weird, but not entirely unpleasant, and though she's sure she's felt it before, she can't remember when or why. It must have been so fleeting she that had had no time to dissect or classify it, then promptly forgot it had ever happened in the first place. Tugging her apron off more roughly than usual, she marches to the kitchen to retrieve her bag. As she lifts it, it falls open and the apple she brought as her lunch thumps to the floor and rolls away.

Peeta stoops to pick it up before she can chase it, and that something pulses happily as his fingers close around the pink skin of the fruit.

_Yes- he is a different creature entirely from Gale._

He hands it back to her, and she shoves it roughly in her pack, flushed and irritated.

"Bye," she mumbles, and swings the back door open. To her surprise, she very narrowly avoids whacking a small, dark boy wearing grass-stained pants. He jumps, clearly not expecting the door to open so suddenly.

"Sorry," she breathes. "I didn't know you were there."

The boy avoids her gaze.

"Is Mr. Peeta there?" he asks, his brow furrowed as he gazes at her shoes with his hands tucked into his armpits.

"Yeah, um, hold on."

She turns back to the kitchen and catches Peeta's curious stare, then nods toward the open door with her head.

"Someone here to see you," she says.

"Oh," he says, frowning slightly. "Tell them to come in."

She does, and as she slips out of the bakery and sprints to the school, she forgets about the boy completely. She's distracted by a new and alien warmth taking root in her chest, flickering within her like a secret fire. When she lies down to sleep that night she feels a little empty. A little confused. She can't explain it. She doesn't understand- and every time she tries to pick the feeling apart, to name it or give it some kind of context, it slides through her fingers like she's like she's grabbing at smoke.

October slips by without an answer in a whirlwind of allspice, woodsmoke and musty wool sweaters.

* * *

On the last Sunday left in the month, Gale takes Rory to the woods and they shoot a buck. As they sit in the backyard gutting and quartering it, she grabs a knife and joins them.

Its as good as an apology as Gale will get from her. Rory grins at her though, and he looks so much like Gale did when he was his age that she can't help but grin back. It was a good, clean kill- and more meat than she and Gale could have carried home had she been there instead of Rory. This amount of meat would get them a fair amount of money, and set them up nicely to start stocking for winter.

Katniss can't help but take a little credit for the situation- she had suggested that Rory join Gale in the first place, and on their first trip they had been wildly successful.

"See?" she says to Gale with a self-satisfied smirk. "I was right."

He grunts in response, but knocks his shoulder against hers playfully and his lips turn up slightly. It's hard to stay mad when they have gotten so lucky.

Together they lug the meat to the Hob, smiling and dirty and covered in sticky sweat, her hair clinging to her neck, and Rory's sweatshirt with a wet trail down the back of it.

Their glee is short-lived, because as soon as they step into the Hob, they know something is wrong. Its packed but subdued, people brushing past one another and barely glancing at each other's faces.

Gale frowns.

"They're busy trying to be invisible," he whispers to Rory, loud enough for her to hear, and Katniss isn't sure what he means until she spots a few patrons she's never seen before. They're not from the Seam. They're not even from Twelve. "Undercover peacekeepers," Gale says. "They've been here for awhile now- just watching. People are getting nervous."

Now so is she.

They try to blend in and make their way unobtrusively to Sae's stall, where she buys everything they have and immediately tucks it away under the counter. Usually Sae is one of the bawdier vendors at the Hob, but today she is quiet and reserved. "They think it was someone in the Seam who started the fire," she whispers to her. "To mess with productivity. They think it was rebels, and the Capitol ain't happy, girly. Not one bit. Watch it now, things 'bout to get bad."

Katniss doesn't doubt it for a minute. There are signs of it everywhere. Haymitch Abernathy is surlier than usual, which even she considers quite a feat, considering his usual state. Ripper has shut down her stall, and on Monday parts of her distillery start turning up in the spare parts yard by the mines. On Tuesday the newly rebuilt town square is flooded with peacekeepers she doesn't recognize, and all she can do is swallow dryly when she spies a whipping post that had never been there before, rising like a concrete obelisk in the town center, casting a long shadow against the Town Hall building.

She wonders how much more people in the Seam can take. She and her little family have been struggling for so long, and she is so tired. She knows Gale must feel the same. Sometimes she watches him when he walks in the door late at night, home from the forest or school, and as he unties his worn black leather boots she can see the lines of tension etched his face.

It's not a surprise to her that Cray disappears on Wednesday, and in his place is a severe looking man whose eyes are as sharp and dark like flint. If cruelty had a face, she decides, it'd be his.

Out of curiosity she ventures to the Hob on Thursday. It's nearly deserted, and Sae shoos her away, bleating at her angrily: "Get moving girl. It's already starting, and you won't be seen anywhere near here if ya' know what's good for you."

What exactly was starting she didn't know, but she trusted she would soon enough.

_Sae had yet to be wrong._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, normally I post an outtake from the next chapter, but this week I wanted to do something a little different and post a drabble from Gale's point of view.  
> -  
> Gale:
> 
> There's a difference between having a natural knack for something, and practicing that thing so much it becomes second nature. Some are born knowing how to do a thing, and others chase it so hard their want for it makes it theirs, even if its unnatural. The line is blurry, but its there- and I know it when I see it.
> 
> I'm good with my hands. I was born that way. My fingers are long and my palms are wide and strong, so I already had a head start, but tying knots, working wood and holding my hands perfectly steady are things I learned I could do by accident. It's a good thing that I can, because there's a lot of other ways I'm unlucky and my hands are what keeps me and my family fed.
> 
> Snares are easy. They come natural to me too. The trick isn't to think of a smart way to trap an animal, but to think how an animal would think, and work your way forward from there. A few of the snares that I know Dad taught me, the rest I made up all on my own. Some I designed easy for Katniss when I was still teaching her how to tie a knot. She has smaller hands than mine, so her snares alway ended up with knots that were too tight. I showed her how to use two fingers instead of one when she was tying slipknots and it solved that problem pretty quick. Didn't have the heart to tease her about being so small, even though that's usually something I would have done with anyone else. I know she's the way she is because her Mama is dead useless.
> 
> Being angry is the last of what comes natural to me, and I don't know where it starts and I end because its braided up so tightly in me that the cords of everything else I am just get lost. Mama doesn't like it. She purses her lips tight when Rory and I get into it, and then her face turns blotchy and she grabs us by our ears until we yowl. And that's if she's home. If not, we just tussle until I win.
> 
> The problem is I don't know when to stop. I just get worse and worse until I break something or fight someone and then all of it leaks out of me like I'm a rag twisting myself dry. After that I'm fine. Keep going like nothing happened. Used to be I'd cry afterward- like all that energy just leeched me to nothingness and I'd shake and whimper until I fell asleep.
> 
> That was a long time ago. Before Dad got swallowed up by the mines. Now there's always a little something left me that wants to keep going even after everything is done, and I don't cry. I just wait because its not over for me. Not yet.
> 
> Like I said, its hard to know where me and my anger are different.
> 
> Maybe we're not. Maybe its just what I am.
> 
> After all that, you'd think I'd want to ram my fist through Peeta Mellark's face the first time I catch him eyeing Katniss in the school yard. Funny thing is, I don't.
> 
> Peeta's ok for a Townie. Really.
> 
> In another life, we probably could have been friends.
> 
> He and I have something in common: Katniss won't go for either one of us, no matter how moony-eyed we look at her. She doesn't like that kind of crap anyway. So in the end, we both get to follow her around like little puppies, and its all actually just funny. Instead of being jealous I just feel a weird kind of camaraderie with him, which is more than I've felt for any other Townie.
> 
> Plus, he's so damn nice. If it ever came down to it, and Katniss had to choose between us, he'd probably bow out just to make life easier for everyone else. See what I mean? It's kind of impossible to hate the guy.
> 
> So really, its not him I'm mad at when Katniss starts pulling away from me.
> 
> And its not her, because she's so oblivious it's hard to take anything she says about what she wants seriously.
> 
> It's me.
> 
> I am angry that I am failing her. Angry that I am failing my family. Angry that I can't find a better solution to getting us all fed and getting the bills paid. Angry that I can't fix what's wrong with her. Angry that she went and-
> 
> She did it for us.
> 
> I get that. She saved us.
> 
> And I hate it.
> 
> Katniss Everdeen was born knowing how to throw herself in front of a moving train to save the ones that she loves. Me? I was born capable and angry. I thought she was like me. She's not though, she's just scared and desperate. She just wanted so badly to survive that she became like me. Funny how it takes someone saving your life to know that there are some things you'd rather die than have to see someone do for you. To see how someone you thought you knew like the back of your hand was a stranger all along.
> 
> In the end, I realize there are lots of things I was born with a knack for, but none of them help me love her. That doesn't come to me naturally.
> 
> It does to Peeta Mellark though. I wish I could hate him.
> 
> Maybe I'll learn to.


	5. Misdirection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her stomach flips nervously, and a strange sense of foreboding fills her as she realizes that Delly is confirming two things she has suspected for some time now: one, that Peeta Mellark is a very accomplished liar, and two, that he is in trouble, and there is no one he trusts enough to tell.

_**v.** _

* * *

By the time she notices that something is different, the trees are bare and the temperatures have plummeted. Piles of leaves tumble across the hard-packed, frozen dirt in the schoolyard, and frigid afternoon rainstorms send chills straight to her bones as she makes her way either home or to work. At one point or another throughout the day she is either cold or wet, and sometimes a truly miserable combination of both.

In the school bathroom's mirror Katniss pulls up her eyelid and watches the veined orb underneath roll left and right. The dim lighting of the dingy space colors her irises nearly black, and the whites of her eyes seem brighter in contrast. She drops her eyelid and turns her head slowly from side to side. Her cheeks have filled out, rounding ever so subtly, and brushed a glowing, raw pink by the autumn winds. Her hair has a new luster too, shiny and dark enough to be striking, even against her olive skin. Running an exploratory finger over the ridges of her braid, she wonders at the changes a few weeks of hearty food could bring.

She drops her gaze from the mirror to the rusted tap and twists it on. With cupped palms, she collects some water and splashes it on her face. It's cold against her skin, sending chills down her spine and drips down her neck and under her sweater. It feels good after spending hours trapped in a stuffy classroom warmed by a hissing gas heater that must have been no less than a hundred years old. There's no towels in the bathroom, but she's perfectly happy to let the nip of the cold sting her face anyway as she exits the musty room and heads toward the school cafeteria.

A light flickers rapidly overhead, and she makes the mistake of letting her gaze drift up. The flashing burns in her eyes and throbs echo angrily in her head. She rubs the heels of her palms in her eyes, and in the black-red darkness behind her eyes she prays that today will not be the day her headaches come back.

It's been a week since her last headache. A blessed seven whole days of a clear head and steady stomach, and already she's dreading the end of this reprieve. All the same, she can't help the giddiness that overtakes her as she lies in bed after each day passes without pain. But she doesn't dare believe that this is the end. She doesn't dare let herself hope.

But if it is...if the headaches are truly gone, then she and Gale and Rory can go out beyond the fence, this time all together. They'll be able to catch and carry home even more than before, and they'll have more food and more money- enough, maybe, for a new dress for Prim. A new pair of pants for her. New boots for Gale. Maybe even a toy for Posy.

She doesn't let herself think on this further. It is too much to hope for, little better than wishful thinking, and she knows better than to plan for a future she might not ever get to have. What use was wishing for the best when it was the worst that always seemed to make itself real?

With this grim thought, she plops down at a table by herself and realizes with surprise that what she really needs at that moment is something to distract her from her uncertainties- other than food. Lunch has gotten lonely without Madge.

Picking bitterly at her roll, she tries to get as much into her stomach before the bell rings as she can, but doesn't have much success. The tables around her are packed with Merchant and Seam children alike, boisterously talking and sharing food, and she supposes she could join Gale at his table if she had the mind to. She sneaks a look at him and his upperclassman friends as Thistle McCullough strides by the table and one of the rowdier boys pants comically after her like a dog. When Thistle doesn't react, he throws his head back and barks, and Gale's table erupts in cheers and laughter. Through the chaos, Gale catches her gaze from across the room and grins, motioning her over.

Instead of joining him, she turns around and glares out the window distractedly.

Madge hasn't been back to the lunchroom since she snapped at her, and she's deftly ignored her in the halls. Katniss supposes she deserves it. But when the chair beside her scrapes the floor with a loud squeal, she halfway expects that its Madge coming back to sit with her despite their fight. She's disappointed to find that it's not though, its Delly, whose round face brightens as Katniss looks at her in question.

"Hi Katniss," she chirps. "I saw you all alone. Everything ok?"

Katniss flushes in embarrassment and frowns down at the table.

"Fine," she mutters, and takes a dutiful bite of her food. She misses Madge.

"Well, I never see you alone. You're always with Gale or your sister or someone. You're sure you're ok?"

"Yeah, just- um. Not hungry."

She pushes the roll away from her finally, and her fingers fidget with the brown paper bag that held her lunch.

"Do you want some of my cheese? I don't really like it, and I don't want to throw it away," says Delly cautiously. Katniss wants to refuse on principle, but since starting work at the bakery she's found she has a particular weakness for cheese. And she'll need her strength for this afternoon's shift. A few bites of bread will definitely not take her through the day.

Delly hands it to her and smiles shyly, and though Katniss isn't particularly keen on her company, she finds herself warming a little to the vivacious girl.

"Thanks- I, um, really like cheese," she says quietly, and Delly smiles widely in return.

"See? I knew we could be friends!," Delly teases with a bright grin. "All it took was a little food."

Katniss takes a cautious bite of the cheese and shoots a half-hearted glare at her.

"Oh come on," says Delly, nudging her arm. "I bet under all those scowls you're actually really nice."

"Don't let her fool you, Cartwright. Underneath those scowls are even more scowls," laughs a voice from behind them. Katniss rolls her eyes.

"C'mon Catnip," he says with a smirk. "Lets get you to class before Cartwright here tries to buy you off with more cheese."

Katniss shoves her things in her bag and stands up quickly.

"Thanks again," she mumbles to Delly. The blonde fidgets nervously, chewing her bottom lip.

"Wait- Katniss, I need to talk to you about something."

Gale's dark gaze shifts to the blonde girl and Katniss knows that look. He's dissecting her.

"Um. Ok. Gale, go ahead. I think I can find my own way to class."

That dissecting gaze is turned on her, and she feels the secret she has kept from him rising to the surface of her mind. The seizure- the one she had never told anyone about. But if he reads it on her face, he doesn't let on because he shrugs and says: "Ok. I'll be waiting out front for you after class."

Katniss nods and fidgets. Gale frowns, pausing for another moment, before he seems to think better of saying anything and heads off.

Delly watches their exchange with interest, but wisely says nothing after Gale leaves.

"Ok, what's going on?," Katniss says.

"Well, actually, its more like I need to ask you for a favor."

Katniss sets her mouth grimly. She isn't in the business of doing favors.

"It won't cost you anything," Delly says quickly. "You won't even have to do anything, really."

Katniss narrrows her eyes, waiting for her to continue.

"It's just… I know you're working for Peeta now. He, uh, well he mentioned that you offered to help him and I wanted to thank you for that. It means so much to him- he's been working so hard since-" Delly's eyes water ominously, and her eyes dart around the room. "-well, since, you know."

Katniss had done no such thing, but she nods along anyway. Peeta had lied. To his best friend.  _For her._

He was either an incredibly talented liar, or Delly was incredibly naive.

"Anyway, I know you're already doing so much, and you must really care about him to help him like this, so I almost feel bad asking, but could you keep an eye on him? I can't go visit him everyday, but I'm really worried Katniss. I don't think he's sleeping, and yesterday he told me he's been having  _nightmares_."

She whispers  _'nightmares'_  loud enough that she can hear it, but in a voice that implies that Delly believes that whatever Peeta is dreaming about is much, much worse than a simple nightmare. Katniss has heard about something like that. People used to come to her mother after having them, begging her for something to make them go away. Her mother would just shake her head sadly, and tell them there was nothing she could do. Katniss had heard them described- dreams so terrible and so incredibly real that you were trapped in your worst fears with no hope of waking unless you were woken by someone else- or your heart stopped. Night terrors, they were called.

Her stomach flips nervously, and a strange sense of foreboding fills her as she realizes that Delly is confirming two things she has suspected for some time now: one, that Peeta Mellark is a very accomplished liar, and two, that he is in trouble, and there is no one he trusts enough to tell.

For the rest of the day, its like she's there but she's not. Time leaps around dizzyingly. At one point she's leaving the cafeteria, and the next she's midway through history without remembering what happened in between. Her mind is working like she sees Gale's doing when he's formulating out a new trap, but there's something she's missing. Some vital piece of information that will make sense of everything. Then suddenly she's outside and class is over, and Gale is walking up to her with that look from before on his face- the one where he's mentally opening her up and picking her apart.

He knows something is going on. He knows that she's keeping something from him, but he can't figure out what.

'Well good,' she thinks. 'At least we're both in the same boat.'

"Alright there Catnip?"

"Yeah," she says. "Just tired."

"Your head doing ok?"

"Yes. No headache."

Gale smiles broadly, no little pride on his face.

"Its been what now, at least a week, right?"

She can't help but smile a little too, relieved that months worth of bark-flavored tea and frequent nausea were finally coming to an end.

"Seven days," she confirms, but as soon as she does, her mind is drifting back to the puzzle that is Peeta Mellark.

Gale knocks her in the shoulder lightly with his fist.

"Look at you, Catnip. I think you got this thing beat."

"Yeah," she mutters distractedly. "Maybe."

"What's going on with you? You seem-," he gestures vaguely "-out of it. Spacey."

She looks down at her boots, the toes of which are worn so heavily that they're a different brown entirely from the rest of the shoe. She needs to lie- and lie very well. How would Peeta do this?

"Do you think it's true what they say about-" she starts, and then mouths the last part soundlessly"-the Capitol?"

Misdirection. Get Gale to talk about his favorite thing- rebellion.

"Katniss-" he hisses in warning, his eyes darting around wildly.

Katniss gestures at her eyes, then points to his lips, trying to get him to understand that she can read what he says even if he doesn't use his voice.

Gale is silent for another moment, training his eyes downward before shooting her a sideways glance and shaking his head. And then, suddenly, he throws an arm around her and nuzzles her ear. She tries to squirm away from him but he holds her fast, his breath hot and sticky against the shell of her ear.

"Relax, just- calm down Katniss. I'm going to tell you what I know, but it has to be like this. Try to act normal."

He's too close. She hates it. This was a mistake.

"There's a rebellion. It's quiet, and its small, but its growing. I don't know who set the fire, but the Capitol seems to think that it was set by someone from the Seam, and they've been 'punishing' us ever since. Only, none of it seems to be having any effect. I heard they messed with the Tesserae, replaced the grain with something that's not toxic but doesn't have any nutrition either. So people are eating, but its not food. Its something else, I don't know what. But whatever it was, it didn't do what they wanted it to. So they've been cracking down in other ways. Following people at the Hob and keeping lists. Replacing Cray. I wouldn't be surprised if they shut the mines down next."

He pulls away from her, dark eyes glittering in that strange place somewhere between cold anger and giddy excitement that only Gale seemed to be able to get to. She swallows as she meets his gaze, fiddling with the strap of her bag. Disconcerted by his sudden closeness, she is unable to formulate any believable response.

But Gale must have thought this was what had her so upset in the first place because he smiles reassuringly at her.

"Don't worry," he says. "You look fine.  _I swear._ "

She understands that what he's swearing is that everything will be fine, because they both know she's not one to fuss about what she looks like. But this is another one of Gale's unkeepable promises, so instead of responding she just nods mutely and shoves her hands in her pockets.

Gale's pace slows suddenly, and then he comes to a complete stop.

"Uh, Katniss, I have to go," he says. She glances up and sees him looking just a little ways up the road, where, of all people, Madge Undersee is shifting from foot to foot and watching them apprehensively. Katniss narrows her eyes at Gale and she feels an odd fury building in her gut.

Was Madge waiting for Gale? And, more than that, how did she know where to wait for him?

Before she can say anything, he darts off without looking back, and her mood completely blackens. Madge looks at her guiltily as Gale takes her arm and tugs her forward, already saying something to her in a low voice. Her gaze stays locked on Katniss long after they've veered off down a side street, before the pair finally disappear behind a building.

By the time she's walking toward the bakery for her shift, she's furious, and has no idea why. She tries to find what, exactly, about Gale's departure with Madge has her so worked up, but all that serves to do is wind her tighter.

Was she angrier at Gale, or at Madge? Was it because she was in a fight with Madge and expected Gale to stay away from her because of it? Or was it because Madge's anxious face, the shift in her weight from foot to foot that implied guilt, and Gale's abrupt departure all seemed to point that there was something going on between them?

There- that was what nettled her.

That despite everything that she and Gale had shared, there was one thing they never would, because she would never allow it. It wasn't something she had ever considered, let alone wanted. And there was no use in it, anyway, because where would it lead? She could never marry him. Or give him a child.

For the first time, she shifts their positions, and imagines the world through his eyes. Imagines that it's her that wants  _affection_  like that. Imagines watching her friends with envy as it happens for them. Imagines that's its Gale who becomes sullen and quiet at the mention of marriage and families and children, while all along secretly desiring those things herself.

It's not so much of a stretch, then, that he would seek that kind of relationship in someone else. And Madge, she grudgingly admits, could be good for Gale in ways she never could be. She and Gale are too independent to really be patient with each other's shortcomings, and too stubborn to ever resolve an argument without someone getting hurt. Madge could be compassionate where she couldn't. She was smarter in some ways too. Really, Katniss thinks, she should feel happy for Gale.

But all she can find within herself to feel is disgust. How could he even consider that kind of thing with the Capitol breathing down their necks like a pack of wild dogs? Didn't it concern him at all that at any moment the Capitol could swoop in and squash them all like so many ants under a boot? Did he forget completely about the Reaping? About the Hunger Games?

Meaningless sudden death. Starvation. Drought. Fire. All reasons to avoid any kind of entanglement as much as possible, lest it become what ruins you.  _And it would ruin you._  Like it ruined her mother.

And then she thinks something that freezes her breath inside her; a thought so utterly confusing that it continues to churn in her mind, oscillating hollowly, until she reaches the bakery.

Why, if she so adamantly did not want children or a family, was she so upset that Gale might want that with someone that wasn't her?

As her hand closes around the door handle on the back door of the bakery, she comes to a decision: none of those questions were answerable, at least not immediately, nor did they matter in any way that wasn't abstract. What mattered was what was real and in front of her. What was solid and quantifiable. Food. Clothing. Shelter.  _Staying alive._

She swings the door open, and the roar of the oven fans greet her in a rush of heat and sound.

"Boy are you a sight for sore eyes," says Peeta as he enters the kitchen to greet her.

Its a terrible joke.

Its not funny at all.

Because a welt has swollen his left eye shut, and for all his lying, clever misdirection and deft camouflage, Peeta finally has encountered problem he cannot fix with words.

* * *

There are things she remembers about her mother that sometimes come back to her, even if she avoids thinking about her. It's kind of impossible for them not to- afterall, there was a time when her mother had been a  _mother_.

She was ten, a few short months away from the mining accident that would kill her father, when she got in a fight at school. This was before hunting was anything more than something she did occasionally with her father. Before his bow became hers, before her hands became calloused, before her legs became strong. She had lost that first fight, which wasn't much of a surprise, and limped home with a black eye and a nosebleed, sniffling forlornly and scratching at the itchy tear trails that had dried on her face.

She doesn't remember the why she had been fighting in the first place, but she does remember that when she got home, her mother had been there to wash her face. To hold her. She had pressed snow coat, sweet and cold, to the cut on her cheek and her black eye as they sat together in her rocking chair in front of the fire.

_It hurts so bad to remember how her mother used to be._

The memory slips through her fingers as she stares at Peeta and realizes that there is a reason he is so adept with words. He had learned a specialized kind of survival, where the rules were fluid and unfair and he would never, ever win. He stood no chance, really. He never had.

Questions burn the tip of her tongue, but she knows better than to ask. Whatever game Peeta is playing he isn't about to reveal, and any truths she wanted she would have to uncover on her own.

It's not cold enough for snow. Not yet. So there will be no snowcoat for Peeta.

And there will be no one to wash his face for him. Maybe there never has been.

There will be no one that will hold him. No rocking chair in front of a fire.

And if anyone deserved those things, it was Peeta.

Her jaw clenches as she searches for the right words to say, but those slip by her too. Words were never something she had been good at. Doing is what she is good at.

The odd little smile Peeta had been holding mechanically on his face fades just slightly as he watches her reaction. Its enough to set her in motion.

With two quick strides she is at the stove and puts the kettle on. Without a word, she disappears to the front of the store where she switches the sign hanging in the door from 'Open' to 'Sorry- We're Closed!" and locks the door with grim determination. Then she is back in the kitchen, slamming a mug down on the steel counter and raiding the pantry for black tea.

Peeta watches her with a quiet mix of embarrassment and wonder as she shoves him down onto the only chair in the kitchen- the one he usually used to prop open the back door.

"Katniss" he says "Say something- please."

"Where is the cheesecloth?"

"Huh?"

"Cheesecloth. I need some."

"Um, its on the shelf over the sink. Far right."

She finds it, tears off a square, and puts it on the counter next to the mug. Then she drags over her pack and retrieves the leather satchel she has been using to store her willowbark. She takes a healthy pinch of it and puts it in the center of the cheesecloth, then mixes in some of the black tea. She brings the corners of the cloth together and twists until she has made a makeshift teabag. She holds it over the mug and pours the boiling water from the kettle through the bag, effectively brewing tea and making a poultice for Peeta's eye all at once.

She puts the tea on the work table in front of him.

"Tilt your head back," she says.

When he does, she checks that the poultice isn't too hot before gently holding it to his eye, while threading her fingers through his hair to support the back of his head.

"Katniss, I-"

"Shh. Just... don't move, ok?"

"Ok."

"That stuff from my bag is willowbark," she says quietly. "It will get rid of the pain, but it tastes horrible. Just a fair warning."

Distantly she can hear someone knocking on the front door, their garbled words muted by the glass storefront. Neither she nor Peeta make any effort to move. Her blood is pounding in her veins, and that thing from before, the flicker, is back. Peeta's lone good eye is trained unwaveringly on her face, examining her like she's some kind of riddle. It has to be the heat from the ovens that has her feeling so light-headed.

Then a knock thunders at the back door and she can sense that he is anxious to answer it by the way he squirms in his seat and his eye flickers over to the door. She grabs his hand and pulls it up to hold the poultice over his eye.

"I'll get it. Stay here."

"No- hang on. It'll only take a minute."

He fetches a large, white paper bag with his free hand, tucks it under his arm, and swings the door open. A sense of de ja vu washes over her when she sees a scrawny black-haired boy with a cut on his chin standing there. He and Peeta exchange a few quiet words, before Peeta hands him the bag, and the boy dashes off.

How often was Peeta allowing his customers to put their purchases on a tab? How was he keeping track of who owed what? She had seen the bakery's ledger- more often than not their sales don't match their expenditures, let alone clear a profit. And there were no mentions of individual customers who owed them money.

Peeta's cramped numbers sprawled haphazardly across the pages and could be hard to read, sometimes to the point of total illegibility. Some days he wrote nothing at all, as though no sales had been made, but she knew full well that there had been. Other entries were full of errors, but the final sales figure always seemed to make sense to him.

Prim had a saying she liked to use:  _"If it quacks like a duck, chances are its not a goat."_  It's absurd, but holds a kernel of truth: the simplest explanation is often the right one. If the numbers seemed wrong, they probably were.

But there was no way he would be honest with her about that either.

Maybe he wasn't particularly skilled in math. It would certainly explain why the totals were sometimes off. She wracks her brain for memories of Peeta and math, but comes up with nothing. That wasn't really such a surprise- she rarely paid attention to anything that happened in school. If he was too ashamed to ask for help she could understand that, even if it was stupid and risky not to do so. The Capitol provided the bakery with grain, and god help Peeta if they found out he was cooking the books.

She opts to bite her tongue (for now), but resolves to get the truth from him soon as she can. Frustrated, she heads to the storefront and starts to close up the shop: packing away the day-olds, flicking off lights and counting the till. Peeta silently joins her a moment later, perhaps sensing her irritation, and she is hyper-aware of his self-conscious movements as he uses one hand to wipe down the counters while holding the now cold poultice to his eye.

When they're finished, she makes him choke down the tea, and he jokes that it tastes "like tree". She smirks and rolls her eyes heavenward.

"Peeta, its treebark. It literally is tree."

He eyes her curiously.

"That's cool, that you know how to do that stuff. How do you know what tree to get it from? Can it be any tree, or just a specific one?"

"Has to be a white willow," she says, casting him a sidelong glance. "There's one by the fence."

Its a lie. Willows only grow by bodies of water, of which there are none within the confines of the fence.

"Huh. What does it look like?"

There's no way to answer that, because if she describes what the tree really looks like, Peeta will realize right away that there is no such tree in the entirety of Twelve, but if she lies and Peeta is silly enough to try to make tea out of some other tree's bark, he could poison himself. So instead of answering, she stands up and pulls the poultice away from his eye. The caffeine in the tea had reduced the swelling somewhat, but the wheal is still terrible to look at: a painful black-purple, tinged sickly green around the edges. At least the cut in the center didn't seem shiny or pink, so chances are it wasn't infected.

"You have to keep this clean," she says. "When the swelling goes down, we can check your eye and make sure that its ok. But you can't let the cut get infected. Black tea will sterilize it."

"Thank you. You have no idea how much I-," he looks away and purses his lips, considering something. "-how much I've appreciated all your help." If there was ever a joke worth laughing at, it was this one, because Peeta, who had saved her life twice over, was thanking her. All she can do is nod and let the hatred she feels for her own cowardice burn hotly in her chest.

"I'll check it again tomorrow morning."

Its then that Peeta tugs lightly on the cuff of his sleeve, a familiar action that sets off alarm bells in her mind. Whatever he said next she couldn't trust to be true.

"Actually, don't worry about coming in tomorrow," he says. "Take the day off. I'm sure you could use it."

And just like that, she knows, come hell or high water, that she is going to be at the bakery the next morning. If she wants her answers, she will get them then.

A short time later, she packs her bag and prepares to leave. Peeta busies himself with the sales ledger, but barely skims the page before he snaps it shut and thunks it onto the table. He follows her to the door and holds it open as she heads out into the early evening, just as the sun is dipping down past the horizon line.

"Katniss, wait," he says suddenly "I..." One corner of his lips rise, but its not a smile, its more like a grimace, and he seems to lose his nerve, his lips tightening just slightly before his face becomes stony and unreadable. "Thanks again."

She nods, and slips away. Briefly, she's not sure why, she turns around and is surprised to find that he's watching her, still standing exactly as she left him, propping open the door with his arms hanging limp at his sides.

She wonders what it was that he had wanted to say.

* * *

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

It's Gale. She's nearly half-way home when he barrels onto the road, yelling at her as though she were a child who had run away at the market.

"At the bakery. I stayed late."

"You stayed late? Why didn't you tell anyone you were going to do that? We've been looking all over for you!"

"I didn't know I was going to. And why didn't you check the bakery first?"

"Because we thought you might have-," Gale bites his tongue. "We thought you might have gotten  _sick_  on the way back. We've been checking bushes and-"

Katniss blanches angrily.

"Are you  _serious_? Gale, that was one time! And it hasn't happened since. I'm fine. I'm not going to be dead in the middle of the road because I'm an hour late coming home, and you need to stop making everything about that time in the woods. I don't need you to take care of me!"

"Katniss you didn't see what it looked like!"

"No, I just lived it.  _So lay the HELL off._ "

Gale never responds, just grabs her shoulders roughly and tugs her forward. She wonders if he's going to hurt her, but then suddenly his lips are on hers. Before she's even sure it's happened, he's pulling away and stepping back from her.

They're both breathing heavily, and Gale is flushed and sweaty despite the fact he's not wearing a coat.

"Me and Prim-" she spits venomously "-we're moving back home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey guys! This was a monster of a chapter. Bring popcorn to Chapter 6 ;)
> 
> Mega-huge thanks to my beta Opaque, who somehow understands what I mean to say even if the first draft I send her is a sloppy mess of typos and run-on sentences.
> 
> And a mega-huge thanks to everyone who responded to Chapter 4, and to all the readers who lurk quietly as well! I'm just so tickled people are reading this!
> 
> Its the coolest thing ever that this weird thing that you do in your spare time people actually like!


	6. Cost and Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Within the fence, we get to choose what we do. Its kind of all we have."
> 
> Be aware that this chapter has mentions of alcoholism, suicide and self harm. If these things are upsetting to you, please be cautious about proceeding.

 

_**vi.** _

* * *

There are some days when Katniss looks at Rory and sees so much of his older brother in him that its like looking three years into Gale's past. Lanky and tousle-headed with a stubborn set in his jaw, he's the spitting image of Gale when he had been sixteen. He even smiles just the way Gale did, wide, bashful and all-of-sudden, as if he were surprised and mildly embarrassed to find himself doing so.

With everything that makes Rory like his brother, it's easy to forget that he is very much so his own person. There are times when she sees it though, like now, as he walks silently beside she and Prim, shouldering both of their packs with ease as they make their way back home- the Everdeen home.

Though he's two years younger than she is, he surpassed her in height long ago. Still, he seemed somehow  _smaller_  than he was, and she doesn't think its just because when she met him he had been even scrawnier than Prim. Its something in the way he holds himself- loose and relaxed, always conscious not to loom over those around him.

Gale didn't hold himself that way. He never had.

Rory shoots her a quick glance out of the corner of his eye and then scowls down at his shoes- hand-me-down steel-toe boots that had once belonged to his older brother, and before that, his father.

"He shouldn't have done that," Rory says, and he doesn't have to elaborate. There's only one person he could be talking about. "I know its better that you do, but I wish you didn't feel like you had to leave."

Katniss keeps staring at his boots. How many mornings had she spent next to these very shoes as they carried Gale through the woods? Too many.

"You know why I have to," she answers.

"Yeah. I don't want you to go though," he says bitterly. "I like having you around. Its not fair." Rory kicks at the dirt, and for a moment, he is just eight years old again, angry that Gale was leaving for the woods again instead of playing with him. "I wish it was Gale that was leaving."

"No you don't," she chides, more callously than she means to. "Gale made a mistake. But everything he does, he does for you guys."

Rory looks embarrassed and hurt, but then his face hardens.

"No. He doesn't," he says. "Some things he does for himself. Just because he wants to. And he doesn't give a damn about what it does to other people."

She doesn't respond, partly because its true, but it won't help anyone, especially not Gale's family, if he and Rory get into a fight. But she also doesn't want to talk about Gale anymore, especially not with his younger brother who is so much like him.

She is weary of her own racing thoughts, ready to admit that she'd never understand why Gale would go and do…  _that._  He knew better. He knew how she felt and he had still kissed her, as if everything she had said had meant nothing at all.

Maybe that was what had upset her the most. That Gale was willing to do without permission something she had expressed numerous times she didn't want. Gale was also older than she was, and though it was only by two years, and it had never mattered before, suddenly it seemed to matter a lot more when kissing was involved. He was on his way to having his own job and house, and she still had two years left of school. For whatever reason, this expanded the distance between them significantly.

He had kissed her. It had been her first kiss- not that that meant much. If anything it had been irritating and anti-climactic. She was supposed to feel  _something_  at least, wasn't she?

It had been rough, and dry, and she had been angry.

'If that's what kissing is all about,' she thinks, 'then it's incredibly overrated.'

Adding to her confusion and frustration was that she couldn't see why she would be so upset that Gale seemed to be pursuing Madge. She didn't want Gale, she knew that much at least. Why did it matter if he wanted Madge? And if he had wanted Madge, why had he kissed her? Nothing about Gale's actions made sense at all. If anything, they all seemed to contradict one another.

Blessedly, her racing thoughts are interrupted when Rory goes tense and raises his arm in front of Prim to stop her from moving forward. "Hang on," he says. "Katniss- look. I think there's someone on your porch."

Her home stands dark and quiet- just another ramshackle house in a long line of leaning, coal-covered structures. She is still for a moment, just watching. In the dull light and shifting shadows, it's hard to make anything out. And then she sees it. Rory is right.

There  _is_  someone on her porch, hunched over her door, moving in spasms and jerks. Even through the darkness, she can tell there is something wrong with them. Fear grips her.

In the past, a group of morphling addicts had tried robbing her mother. For whatever reason, they had thought that because her mother was a healer, she had access to morphling, or knew how to make it. Katniss had been out with her father, and Prim hadn't been born yet, so her mother was alone when it had happened. The addicts became desperate and angry when they discovered her mother had no secret stash of the drug, and wrecked their house. Her mother was unharmed, but the whole ordeal had shaken Katniss to her core.

Quickly, she runs through her options. Her only advantage in this situation is that they have gone unobserved, and she knows time is running out to make her move.

"Stay here," she whispers to Rory. "If anything happens... you and Prim- you just run. Don't look back."

"Katniss no- don't-," Prim starts, but its no use. Katniss is off like a shot, hugging the shadowy darkness around the run down houses as she makes her way forward.

"Hey," she yells loudly when she arrives at the stairs leading up to the front porch. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, well, isn't this just fantastic," grumbles a male voice.

The figure steps forward, and pale light from the glowing streetlamps catches on his face. Its Haymitch Abernathy. His long hair hangs in greasy strands around his face, and he's sweating and pale, making his skin appear waxen.

" _What_  are you doing?" she repeats.

"I'm was looking for Aster Everdeen. I have a cut. Or something."

"No you werent," she says accusatorily. "You were here for white liquor, weren't you? That's for cleaning wounds, not getting drunk."

"Well aren't you cute," he sneers, swinging his arms open. "You caught me. Now what are you going to do?"

He spins back around unsteadily, and slams his weight against the door. It doesn't budge.

"Hey- stop that!," yells Rory from just behind her. When had he crept up? Katniss glares at the younger boy in exasperation. Prim hangs further back in the shadows, watching the exchange warily.

'Good,' she thinks. 'At least Rory had the good sense to keep Prim out of the way.'

Haymitch looks over his shoulder.

"Great, now there's two of you. Listen, the Everdeens are dead anyway, so unless there's something I'm missing, they're way past needing whatever they got stashed away."

"The Everdeens aren't dead," Katniss snaps. "They're right here, in fact."

Haymitch stops trying to force his way through the door and breathes heavily, squinting at them through the darkness. Katniss steps forward, squaring her shoulders minutely and staring him directly in the eye, the way she would a wild animal.

"And I never said I would keep the liquor from you," she continues, an idea taking shape in her mind. "Just that it had a use. And it wasn't up for grabs."

Haymitch's face stays carefully blank, but she can see even through the darkness of the porch that he's catching on. If she remembered correctly, he was from the Seam too, and he would understand that she was suggesting a trade.

"Alright sweetheart. You've got my attention. What do you want?"

_Money. Food. Safety._

All of those were things Haymitch Abernathy had in abundance. But when the light shifts and glints off the blade he has clasped loosely in his hand, realization strikes her.

All of those things were achievable and sustainable on her own if only she had-

"Your knife. I'll trade it for your knife."

Haymitch laughs.

He flicks the knife and twists his wrist, and in a flash of metal and moonlight, the blade disappears into the handle. With another series of lightning quick flicks of his wrist and fingers, the blade is out again.

"You couldn't handle this blade even if you had enough liquor to trade for it. Do you have any idea how much this cost?"

She raises her eyebrows.

"Don't know. Don't care. And frankly it doesn't matter, because Ripper's out of business, so I'm guessing that this is the last of the liquor in all of Twelve. I don't need it, but you are desperate enough to break into someone's house for it. Cost and value are two very different things in this situation, aren't they?"

She casually peels a piece of paint off the porch banister and flicks it away,

"And it's not your business if I can or can't use the knife... But, let's say I can't. Let's say I wanted a lesson on what you just did with it. Would a second bottle of liquor cover that?"

Haymitch blinks slowly and glares.

"You're pretty damn sharp, you know that? And fucking annoying," he grumbles. "Alright sweetheart. You got yourself a deal."

He thrusts his hand forward, and Katniss is struck at once by the stench of vomit and stale sweat that radiates from him.

She grasps his hand in hers tightly and shakes once.

"You wait here," she says, and motions for Prim and Rory to follow her inside so she can retrieve two bottles out of her mother's store of liquor.

She makes them both wait inside as she finishes her deal with Haymitch, catching flashes of Rory helping Prim clean up through the window. Its apparent in minutes that Katniss' small, quick hands are perfectly suited to handle the blade, and within in an hour she masters opening the knife with just a few flicks of her hand. Its a miracle that she does so well despite how distracting Haymitch's stench is. When she tells him this, he just grunts.

"Don't poke your eye out," he says as he stands to leave, the liquor bottles from her mother's medical stores clinking in his deep coat pockets. "Or do. Either way, don't bother coming to me for help. Hopefully I'll be just drunk enough to be useless."

She rolls her eyes, but her fingers never pause and she doesn't look up from them either.

The knife was an unexpected stroke of luck. It was easy to hide, sharp enough to slice shadows from the wall, and could always be readily available. Additionally, the cold metal had a comforting weight in her palm, and she sits practicing opening and closing it long after she sends Rory home and Prim to bed.

In the firelight of the kitchen, she works her fingers along the knife over and over, watching in fascination as her muscles learn to dance around the blade. For the first time in months, she feels like her feet are on solid ground.

* * *

Instead of sleeping, she leaves early for the bakery. After just a moment of hesitation, she slides on one of her mother's dresses on instead of her pants, which had become much too small for her anyway. If she wanted to pass them on to Prim, she couldn't afford to let the knees wear out. The dress had the added benefit of allowing her to easily store the knife in the top of her stockings. It pinches her thigh where the metal of the knife digs into her skin, but other than that it is surprisingly effective at giving her quick access to the blade, which jiggles reassuringly in her woolen tights with every step she takes through the still slumbering district. It is steadying, almost a relief, to have a weapon again. And this one is far more practical than a bow. Her steps are light as she approaches the bakery, so light that they're nearly silent, even with her boots on.

Which is lucky, because when she looks up from her shoes, she realizes she has been unintentionally trailing a group of Peacekeepers. Nothing good has ever come of Peacekeepers moving quickly through darkness, and her knees nearly buckle in fear. They hadn't seen her, thankfully, but they would have if she had been any louder. She pauses, her hands quaking at her sides, and her mind races.

There was only one place they could be going. Only one place on this street that wasn't a government building and currently dark and empty. At the very end of the street, across from Cray's old house, the bakery light is on, and a trail of peacekeepers are making their way unerringly toward it.

A burst of panic floods her veins and she stumbles forward, catching herself before she trips and forcing her legs to carry her faster, and faster, and faster. She won't get there in time. The door to the bakery opens and they file in, one after the other. Her feet slap the pavement as the door snaps shut with an echoing finality.

She doesn't stop until she's there too, hand fisted around the door handle, breathing heavily as she wrenches it open and bursts into the already stifling kitchen, her dress whirling around her knees and her eyes wide and wild.

Four of the peacekeepers are lined up on one side of the kitchen, but one of them has Peeta by the collar of his shirt and is hauling him across the room.

"Stop!" she yells, and every head simultaneously turns to her and her blood runs cold in her veins.

The peacekeeper who has by his collar shakes him.

"Who's that? Why is she here?"

Peeta's eyes dart from the peacekeeper to lock on her face.

"Perfect timing," he mutters.

He definitely doesn't mean it.

The peacekeeper shakes him again.

" _Who_  is that?," he says again.

Peeta smiles weakly and looks her directly in the eye when he says, "The future Mrs. Mellark."

The world tilts on its axis.  _The future Mrs. Mellark._ Said so casually, so matter-of-fact. But she wasn't. She wasn't the future Mrs. anything.  _What kind of game was he playing at?_

"What does she know?," he asks.

"Nothing," Peeta answers. "I haven't told her anything."

"That's not true," she says breathlessly. The only thing she can think is that if the peacekeepers needed something secret, it was better for Peeta for if it wasn't. "He told me about the sales ledger. That's why I'm here. I'm going to fix it."

The room goes silent and still, as if all the air had been sucked out of it. Her hand strays to her side, where she can feel the lump of her knife through her dress.

"He didn't do anything wrong. He's just-"

His words from before-  _the future Mrs. Mellark-_ buzz angrily in her head.

"-he's not very bright."

Peeta blushes darkly and the Peacekeeper releases him. It must have been the right thing to say, because he rounds on her next.

"Commander Thread wants this month's numbers and what's owed to the Capitol distribution center today. We'll be back at 5pm. Have it then."

"We will," she says.

As soon as the peacekeepers have left, she whirls around to face Peeta, who is adjusting his shirt and frowning.

"What the hell was that, Peeta?," she yells. " _The future Mrs. Mellark?_  Is this some kind of a joke?"

"They would have killed you," he says, eerily calm. "The only people cleared to work here are members of the Mellark family."

"Then what's going on? Why were they here?"

"You shouldn't have come," he says, his words laced with anger. "I told you not to come."

"Yeah, well, I'm here. What did they want?"

"To throw me a party," he says, rolling his eye. The other is still nearly black and swollen shut. Against his drawn face in the blue-grey morning light, the injury looks much worse.

"Tell me what they wanted Peeta," she snarls in response. "Because if you hadn't heard, we're going to have to give it to them before this afternoon or we'll both be dead."

"I owe the Capitol grain distributors money. A lot of money."

"Why? How?"

Peeta sighs heavily and rubs the back of his neck.

"What do you think the tesserae is, Katniss? Where do you think it comes from?"

"It comes from the Capitol," she says promptly. "It's low grade grain that they-"

"No. No it doesn't. It comes from right here. The bakery makes the tesserae rations. We get a list every month of how much to make, and it includes names."

Cold sweat beads on her neck, and whirring of the ovens hums in her ears. Her name had been on a list. That list had been in Peeta's hands, with how many entries she had put herself down for. Her mind spins with the possibilities. Had he know how badly off they were? He must have seen Gale's name too.

"And its not just any low grade grain," he continues. "Its whatever we have lying around that's past its expiration date. Whatever is stale or bad, mixed into a base grain that the Capitol supplies."

He taps a large tub under the table with the tip of his shoe and looks down at it, as if lost in thought.

"It's in here. This is the tesserae base grain. Only... I'm not sure its actually grain anymore. I'm not sure its food at all."

He bites down on the side of his lip and gnaws it thoughtfully.

"There are a lot of different types of grain, but the best ones have something called gluten. I don't know exactly how it works, but it makes the dough stretchy and gives it a certain texture once it's baked. The tesserae grain... it doesn't react that way. It takes twice as long to rise and half as long to bake. The crust is shiny and thin, but the bread is too dense and dries out in a matter of hours. I think there's something wrong with it."

Katniss moves over to his side of the table and peers into the container curiously, as if the differences between the grains were something she could see if she peered long enough into their depths.

"I started noticing a difference right after the fire. Before that, the tesserae grain was just like a low grade wheat flour. Now… I'm not even sure what it is. But I tried making bread with it a few times, and it even though it looks like bread, and tastes like bread, the dough doesn't work right. It doesn't bake the way its supposed to. It doesn't even fill you up. It's like its just… empty."

"But how can that work? How can something look like grain, but not  _be_ grain?"

"It'd be a grain without protein," he says matter of factly, and his lips purse.

"What would the point of that be?" she says, her brows knitting. Even as she says it, she knows the answer.

To feed them without feeding them. To starve them, even as they fill their stomachs.

_To punish them._

Her stomach clenches. It was too horrible. How many children- how many like her- had written their names down over and over to feed their families, only to bring home food that would never satisfy their hunger?

Light headed, she braces herself by placing a flat palm on steel table and lets the shock of the cold surface rise up her arm.

Peeta had known this the whole time.

"You knew," she chokes. "You didn't tell anyone. How  _could_  you-"

"I couldn't. They would have killed them. They might still kill  _us._  I couldn't risk it."

Something clicks into place in her mind.

"You saw my name. You saw Gale's. Our entries- you knew. The tesserae wasn't food... you knew we were starving."

Peeta is suddenly very interested in a scratch on the table top, running his index finger over it and scowling.

"That night-," she chokes. "You were watching for me, weren't you? You knew I'd come because you saw my name."

Peeta stills.

"You did."

"Yes," he says softly. "I did."

"You saved me. Again. Why?"

"Don't Katniss. Don't ask me that. You know."

"Goddamnit Peeta, give me a straight answer, for once!," she yells, and slams her fist down on the table. Peeta flinches away and a sickening guilt washes over her. A moment of horrible silence descends on the kitchen.

"I was watching," he says finally, his eyes still trained down. "I had to make sure. This time, I had to make sure. Katniss… I'm sorry. About the bread, when we were younger. I should have gone to you. I should have handed it to you. I should have made sure it would be enough."

"Peeta, don't," she mutters.

"You were so thin. I knew you were starving. And all I did was throw some burned bread at you."

"No Peeta. You saved me."

His lip curls. His expression is somewhere between a sneer and a grimace.

"Katniss, you saved yourself. I had nothing to do with it."

"I couldn't have done it without you."

"Well, it doesn't matter much now. We'll both be dead by this afternoon, and it'll be my fault," Peeta says and rubs his hands over his face.

"No," she says. "We won't. Bring me the ledger. We'll figure this out."

"Katniss, don't bother. I'll tell them you were lying, and you- just run. I'll make sure they know the truth. That you didn't have anything to do with this."

She frowns.

"Peeta, how bad is it?"

"Its bad."

"How bad?"

He mutters a number that knocks the air right out of her lungs.

"Jesus christ Peeta!"

"I know. I know. But listen- after I began thinking that the Capitol was messing with the tesserae I started adding some other grains to it. After the first week, I knew it wasn't enough. So I added more. After that, it snowballed. But people were still starving. So I tried to make it all fifty-fifty between the tesserae and the wheat flour, but I ended up needing twice as much grain for both because the tesserae grain was so useless. And that ate into the profits, and nothing even got any better. And then I found out kids were coming to the bakery trash looking for food, and I couldn't just stand by and watch... They were too young to take a tesserae, so I told them to come to me directly. I was so deep in already, I figured, what the hell."

He runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head as he turns away toward the oven. A trail of sweat is collecting around the neck of his thin cotton shirt and is dripping down his back. He turns back around slowly.

"They were going to starve people. Mostly from the Seam. Mostly kids," he says, and shrugs one shoulder. "I couldn't let them use me to do that. I don't want to die for it, but if I do, then so be it. I just wanted to show them that I wasn't their pawn. That they don't own me. Does that make any sense?"

"But… they do. They always have. They own all of us. Even if we never end up in the Games, we're all trapped in this fence."

"Yeah, but within the fence, we get to choose what we do. Its kind of all we have."

There was entire rebellion brewing in Twelve, stocking god knows what as weapons, with a secret form of communication, and a network of people that probably included men like Gale- desperate, angry and ready for a fight. But none of them were aware of the most powerful anti-Capitol force already silently at work in Twelve: Peeta Mellark. He had saved lives- probably more lives than he was even aware of, and he had done it all without a single weapon.

He just fed people who were hungry. Simple as that.

"I never wanted you to be involved Katniss. That's why I told you not to come."

"Yeah, well, you can't always get what you want, Peeta," she says with a slight smirk.

He laughs, and that strange flutter creeps back in her stomach. She purses her lips and clears her throat.

"We can't just give up. We have to try."

" _We_  don't have to do anything. You're going to leave, and I'm going to tell them you lied."

"No. Bring me the book. I can fix this."

"Katniss, please-"

"No. Give me the ledger."

Peeta raises his hands in defeat and fetches the book from a shelf over the stove.

"Alright, alright. But you're out of here at four this afternoon no matter what, ok?"

"Ok," she says, even though she has no intention of doing any such thing.

As she trolls through the pages, Peeta continues to set up the store for the day, as if his own mortality weren't hanging in the balance.

"I think you can leave off the bakery work for the day," she says. "Try to think of how we can come up with that money by five."

Peeta frowns minutely.

"People need to eat. They're depending on me. It might be the last time I can actually do something… and we'll make some of that money today," he says. "Hopefully."

"You're right. We will," she says.

He continues to bustle around the back room until it's time to open, and finally leaves her alone with the heat and the ovens as he disappears to the front of the store. The falsified numbers on the pages jump out at her- the discrepancies are laughably obvious. If he was going to defy the Capitol, did he have to be so sloppy about it?

She fights the urge to roll her eyes as she adds a string of numbers in her head and finds yet another mistake. It's almost as if he hadn't even tried to make these numbers look right.

Hovering just over the paper, her pencils stills.

Maybe he hadn't.

_Maybe he wanted to get caught._

She thinks about how empty the bakery seemed when she left at night, still and silent as a grave, and Peeta, moving through the thick darkness of the kitchen to ascend the stairs to the apartment above, alone until the store opened again the next morning- a pattern that would continue until he died. He is a sixteen year old boy who lost his family just a few short months ago, had been ordered by the Capitol to hand down agonizing deaths to people who had done nothing but live on the wrong side of Twelve, and had to choose his own death or the deaths of hundreds of others.

" _Within the fence, we get to choose what we do. Its kind of all we have."_

Of course he had chosen his own death.

As she finalizes the total for another day and turns the page, a horrible thought occurs to her. Had this ever happened before? Had Peeta's father ever had to make the same decision?

The puzzle that is Peeta Mellark comes into focus.

Of course he had. That's why the bakery could only hire members of the Mellark family. Because to work there meant sharing a horrible secret, and the Capital needed people who wouldn't betray one another and tell the entire district. They had to be more than friends. More than neighbors.  _They had to be family._

That's why the Peacekeepers had asked Peeta how much he had told her. That's why, to save her life, he had pretended they were engaged.

Her vision swims for a moment, the lights growing brighter and a odd shimmer dancing just around the edges of her field of sight, then it rights itself. Rubbing her eyes tiredly, she cracks her neck and shifts in her chair.

Maybe she should have tried to get some sleep last night...

An hour later, she snaps the book shut, the numbers finally balanced and correct. It had taken her far less time than she had ever expected to fix them, probably because Peeta had been so lazy with his records. She made most of the entries up, but at least their sales matched their output, and she doubted the Commander Thread would take a full inventory if the numbers seemed to match the distributions centers closely enough. That was all that mattered really.

Peeta is talking amicably with a customer in the next room, and the sounds of their voices carry faintly over the clamor of the ovens.

_You almost couldn't tell he had planned to die._

An odd numbness has taken root in her arm, and she rubs it absent-mindedly. The chair she's been sitting on for what must be hours now is hard, and pins and needles prickle in her feet. She stretches, tightening her muscles and then releasing. As she had moved her legs, the knife had shifted under her stocking and blood rushes to where it had left an indentation in her skin. She pulls up the side of her dress and yanks out the blade, rubbing the sore spot on her thigh to encourage the blood to flow.

She watches the pallid skin as it grows dark pink.

"Peeta!," she yells suddenly. "Lock up! Hurry!"

He pops his head in from the front.

"What? Why?"

"I have an idea."

* * *

"I don't have anymore knives, sweetheart," Haymitch slurs blearily after he yanks open the door.

He blinks slowly and yawns.

"Who's that? Another Everdeen?" He says.

"No. That's Peeta. He's the baker."

"Oh- ok. That explains  _everything_. Why is he here? Why are  _you_  here?"

"I want to trade."

"There's only one thing I'm interested in, and there won't be any more of it coming until next month. So unless you've got something hidden under that pretty dress, girlie, we got nothing to talk about."

Katniss smirks and pulls out a tiny bottle from her jacket pocket.

"You didn't think I really traded you the last of my liquor, did you?"

He grunts, and eyes it as her she swings it from its neck back and forth in front of his face.

"Ok. What do you want?"

She says the number Peeta gave her before, and Haymitch nearly chokes on his own spit.

"Is this some kind of joke?," he grinds out. "Get the hell out of here."

"You have it," she says quickly. "We need it. And money doesn't mean anything to you, Victor. But liquor does."

"You're insane," he says.

Peeta clears his throat.

"Its Capitol grade. Not home brew," he says. "It's over 160-proof. Mix that with some water or juice and you'll be set until the next shipment."

Haymitch eyes the bottle again.

"What's it to you, kid?"

"The money is for me."

Haymitch's eyes drift from the bottle to Peeta, and he peers at him appraisingly. Katniss can tell from the look on his face that even hung over, Haymitch's mind is working to put the pieces together.

"There's only one reason why you'd need that kind of money," he says finally. "And that makes you either stupid or suicidal. Or both. In any case, I can't help you. I don't have that kind of cash."

He is about to snap the door shut when Katniss shoves her foot in the jam.

"We'll trade you that, and the first bottles of rotgut I brew," she says. "You'll save money in the long run, not buying from the Capitol. All we need is time, all you have is money. And you'll get it back when you're not paying for expensive Capital liquor. It's a fair deal."

Haymitch frowns.

"You're gonna take over Ripper's clientele? Somehow, sweetheart, I feel like you and I have very different ideas about fairness."

Behind her, she can hear the sounds of children screaming and laughing as they race home from school. That means it's after three o'clock.

"Take it or leave it old man," she snarls. Haymitch's gaze drifts to Peeta, who is watching their exchange passively. Something like realization flickers on his face, then disappears.

"You're Teff's son?," he says to Peeta, who nods. Haymitch's eyes cloud over.

"Alright," he says finally. "I'll do it. Give me that."

He snatches the bottle from her, and scowls.

"Wait here."

When he returns a moment later with the money, she can feel her hands trembling as they close around the bills. Eyes wide, she shoves the stack in her jacket and tries not to think about how many months worth of food it could provide for her and her family.

"What does 'rotgut' mean?," Peeta asks after Haymitch closes his door, shooting her a sideways glance.

"It means you and me are taking a trip to the junkyard soon. Now come on," she says to Peeta shakily. "We need to get back."

"Katniss," Peeta says. "Thank you. So much."

"Don't thank me yet," she mumbles. "I've never held this much money in my life and I'm seriously considering running off with it and leaving you for dead."

Peeta laughs.

* * *

She wakes under the stars in the woods. Her woods.

Its wet and cold, but that's alright. It feels kind of nice.  _Familiar._

She moves her fingers. Voices echo in the distance.

Voices?

Were there other people in the woods?

She sits up and dizzily raises a hand to her forehead. Every muscle in her body felt sore and ached as if she had been yanked in every direction all at once.

Branches stretch out over her head, but its not from multiple trees. Just from one. A few feet away, a worn dirt path snakes its way through piles of dead leaves, now iced over, and a smattering of dying grass.

Where is she?

That word floats back through her mind-  _seizure._  This time, it had happened without warning on her way back home from the bakery. She had been tired, a little woozy, and then-

With no idea how long she'd spent on the ground, she props her back against the tree and shoves her fist in her mouth. She bites down deep into flesh of her hand, angry sobs shaking her thin form. Her other fist slams against the frozen earth- once, twice. With her hand throbbing angrily, she lets it fall loose by her side and stares into the branches above.

The already freezing tear tracks on her cheeks get blown raw and cold by the merciless autumn wind before she attempts to stand.

"Get up," she mumbles to herself sternly. "Walk home."

It takes her an hour to get home because she's still dizzy, and she's throwing up off the side of the porch when Prim rushes out and scoops her hair out of her face.

"Oh Katniss," she murmurs sadly. "It's ok."

Its not ok, though.  _It's not._

Prim helps her back inside and presses a hot mug of tea into her hands. Holds her as she cries.

Gale had been right all along.

She  _hates_  him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Give it up for my beta Opaque, who read this and got her edits in less than 24 hours! She's incredible!
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope it was as fun to read as it was for me to write. Thanks to the kind folks who reviewed last chapter, and to all the silent readers out there just lurking too!
> 
> No previews this week, but I'll be posting snippets as I write them on my tumblr. So if you're dying to know what's going on, come find me there :)


	7. Junk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because only Gale would think pinning a dead animal to someone’s front door was an appropriate apology.

 

_**vii.** _

* * *

She discovers the dead squirrel pinned to her door on Monday morning and viciously kicks a roof post on her front porch, scuffing her boot and stubbing her toe. Groaning as much in aggravation as in pain, and she considers what to do with it.

It's Gale's weird way of saying sorry without  _actually_  having to say it.

Because only Gale would think pinning a dead animal to someone's front door was an appropriate apology.

And it would have been, all things considered, had he not come to her house in the middle of night to deliver it. It was  _weird_  that he had been outside her house at some ungodly hour, maybe waiting for the lights to dim, before stealthily fastening his kill to her door.

If she removed the squirrel, he would take it as her forgiving him. If she left it, he would know she hadn't forgiven him yet (she hadn't), but there was the little issue of how it badly it nettled her to waste food. No matter what she did, she couldn't win.

_Even Gale's apologies were like traps._

She sighs heavily and settles on leaving it- for now. With the temperatures hovering just above freezing, the squirrel would keep until she could make a decision. At the very least, she needed time to decide what she hated more- Gale thinking he was in the clear, or wasting what could be a perfectly good meal.

She sets off for school, breath rising in clouds in front of her face. Prim is home sick today, and as much as she didn't want to leave her home alone, the punishment for repeated truancy could be severe, and she needed to save her absences in case things got tough this winter and she needed to hunt.

The thought of the woods, soon to be covered in pristine snow, makes her ache to be heading anywhere but the stuffy, dusty school building. There had never seemed to be any point to the kind of education they got in Twelve, but it seems especially pointless after the fire, where so many of their classmates were killed.

The extra desks in the classrooms are testament to the tragedy that had rocked Twelve over the summer, and seeing them everyday is as good as having their classmates tombstones in the room with them. It reminds her of the Games- how the desks of the Reaped children stayed empty until the end of the year, and teachers and students alike had an unspoken rule of never mentioning the missing child, or looking at the desk where they once sat.

This morning when she sees the unfilled chairs, all she can think about is how many more there'd be if it weren't for Peeta.

Classes pass in a monotonous blur. She chews on her pencil. Watches the trees shift in the wind out of the window. In third period, heavy clouds collect on the horizon. In fourth period, the sky darkens noticeably.

In lunch she catches Madge's gaze from across the cafeteria. She's sitting uncomfortably next to Gale at his table full of older Seam boys near the back of the room. Gale sees Madge staring and follows her stare to Katniss. As Gale's eyes meet hers from across the room, Katniss' shoves her chair back and stalks out of the noisy room.

The same question that had plagued her for days floats back through her mind.

_Why had he kissed her?_

She finds herself wandering over to a stairwell that leads down onto the playground. Overhead, the sky is heavy matte gray. Its right around the time Twelve should be getting its first snowfall, and judging by the sky, it could be this very afternoon. Planting herself on the stairs, she picks at her lunch and ignores the cold seeping from the concrete steps through her pants.

Restlessness keeps her from enjoying her food. The school regularly searched students and their belongings, and, not wanting to risk losing it, she had left her knife at home. She regrets it now though- it would have been nice to have it.

It was soothing, meditative even, to run through the motions of opening and closing it. She was working on her speed- it was the most practical thing she could think to do with the blade. It didn't seem to be very good for throwing (she had tried in her backyard, and Prim had collapsed in a fit of giggles when the knife clattered against the back of the house and then sunk, tip first, into the dirt), but it was quite durable. Maybe she could learn how to carve with it…

A snowflake drifts from the sky, alighting on the tip of her boot before melting away.

She looks upward to see if anymore are coming when she spies a flash of pink in the schoolyard. A blonde girl disappears behind a tree, and a moment later a soft laugh floats to her ears.

Katniss flushes and shoves what remains of her lunch in her bag and stalks back into the school building.

_It's insane- to get involved with someone in that way, especially after the drought, after the fire, and with the Reaping less than six months away, how could anyone justify-_

She collides head on with Delly, and the larger girl grabs her arm to keep her from falling backwards.

"Oh- Katniss, sorry," she says breathily.

"Its ok," she mumbles, readjusting her bag on her shoulder.

"I was looking for you earlier. Can I talk to you?"

"I'm kind of busy," she mutters at the floor. Delly doesn't seem to hear her.

"I saw you run out of the cafeteria. Is everything ok?"

Every muscle in her body turns to stone and her neck prickles.

"It's fine," she snaps.

"Ok. Just wanted to make sure," Delly says in a small voice. "I saw Gale. And Madge. Are you sure you don't-"

"I don't," Katniss barks at her. "I have to go."

"Wait- Katniss," she says. "I just wanted to thank you- for Peeta. I saw him yesterday, he looked... much better."

Katniss tenses.

"He's like family to me." Delly's voice is trembling and tight. "I've been worried about him, you know?"

For once, she does. Even before she had known about what he had done for the Seam, Peeta always had given the impression of someone playing a game that was beyond his ability to win.

"So, if you're looking for a reason why I'm always on your tail… its because of him. You have no idea how much it means to him that you're there."

Delly pauses, mulling something over in her mind, completely ignorant of how uncomfortable her statements have made Katniss. If only Delly really knew why she was at that bakery. If only Delly knew what she had done. What Peeta had done…

"And, I know I shouldn't say anything about it, but, you seem so upset- whatever's going on with Gale... it'll work itself out."

Empty platitudes like that were one of the reasons she had never really liked Delly Cartwright. They had an ambiguous sincerity that served to obscure, but never really completely hide, what the speaker truly meant. If was hard to imagine Delly's intentions being anything but honest: her unassuming forthrightness had gotten her into deep trouble more than once. All the same, Katniss had difficulty reconciling how someone as naive as Delly could possibly have managed to survive this long.

A voice in her head she recognized as coming from Gale grumbled that it was because Delly had the  _means_  to ensure a lifetime of naivete, but that was wrong. Even being part of the merchant class didn't ensure the kind of security Gale assumed it did, and she didn't have to look any further than Peeta to see that.

No… Delly may be sincere, but perhaps she hadn't been as naive as she had always thought. Somehow, Delly had seen that Peeta was in trouble long before anyone else had, even Katniss.

Something about her final thought makes her gut twist, even though it made sense that Delly would know before she did. They were, after all, close friends. And had been for years…

There had even been rumors (before the fire) of a marriage when school and the Reapings were finally over. Whether that was true or not she decides not to question before the horrible burning in her stomach grows any worse.

As the afternoon wears on, snow blows in lethargic flurries, though none of it really sticks. The events of lunch tumble over and over in her mind like she's somersaulting down a hill, and by the end of the day she can hear her blood thumping in her ears over the droning voice of her teacher. It had been such a mistake not to stay home with Prim and just skip school all together.

The moment the bell rings she flies out of the classroom and doesn't slow down until she's at the bakery. The blast of warm air that greets her when she tugs open the door burns her frozen cheeks and fingertips in welcome, and for the first time all day she's happy to be somewhere that isn't home. A few hours of packing orders and washing dishes should soothe her nerves.

"Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in," drawls a voice from the other side of the kitchen, and she groans aloud when she spies Haymitch Abernathy slumped in the chair, arm over the back and long legs stretched out in front him.

She throws her bag down by the door.

"Why are you here?" she snaps. "You have enough liquor to drink yourself blind. What else could you possibly want?"

Haymitch raises his thick eyebrows and smirks as he takes a short swig from his flask.

"Thought I'd check up on my rotgut," he says. "Make sure you're not trying to poison me. Imagine my surprise when I found out Ripper's still was in the junkyard."

His lips form a thin line.

"Any reason why Ripper's still would  _still_ be in the junkyard?"

Katniss jams her apron over her head and flicks her braid over her shoulder.

"Yeah- we haven't gotten it yet."

"And when, pray tell, do you plan on doing that?"

Peeta pops his head around the door.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yes. He was just leaving," Katniss spits.

"Actually, sweetheart," he drawls, standing slowly. "You want me here. I have a certain skillset that you haven't realized you need yet. That whole engagement thing you two got cooked up? Well they're only convinced that the boy is for real. You, on the other hand-," he gestures toward Katniss with his flask "-they're not quite sure you're in it for the long haul, so to speak."

"Who's not convinced?," Peeta says.

"Who cares?," she snaps.

" _The Capitol."_

A moment of silence passes through the kitchen and Katniss stares at Haymitch in complete horror.

For the past few days, she had been trying her best to perpetuate rumors that she and Peeta were engaged- with a (very) limited degree of success. Admittedly, she had very little personal experience in that respect, so all her knowledge was derived from her parents interactions. She had dug through her memories of the time before her father's death in an attempt to understand what would be expected of her. Much of it she decided would not be doing.

Mainly the kissing.

But the other things- the touching, the frequent glances- those she could manage.

Or so she had thought.

Peeta had been talking to a customer, with Commander Thread lurking around the front. He was on his way into the kitchen to fetch them a specialty order, when she saw her chance. She had meant to just brush his wrist with her fingertips, something light, with just enough intimacy in it to imply all the things she knew she absolutely wasn’t going to be able to do outright (again, mainly the kissing). Unfortunately, her best effort was a disaster.

The second her skin made contact with his, he jumped.

Once Peeta realized what she had been doing, he had laughed, made some joke about how cold her hands were and played it off as though the whole thing had been some sort of accident, but the damage had been done.

Commander Thread wasn't convinced, and no matter what Peeta had told the peacekeepers, they believed she knew the secret purpose of the Bakery. They would come after her. They would kill her.

_Prim. Would they hurt Prim?_

She clenches her apron with an iron grip.

"Now she gets it," Haymitch says and takes a long drag from his flask. He smacks his lips when he's finished, then flops back down in the chair. "I can help you fix it. I know how they work."

"What do we do?," asks Peeta, his face hard. "How do we fix it?"

"First, you make a deal with Ripper or she'll come after you big time. Then you get that damn still out of the junkyard. After that, we'll talk."

* * *

Ripper lives in the only two story in house in the Seam. It's easy to find her place because the jagged roofline rises well above all the other's in the neighborhood, and because she's the only person in the District with a painted house. It's a washed out, faded pink- darker around the eaves and under the pipes than anywhere else. In the summer sunlight, it looks just slightly different than the other white washed homes of the Seam, but in the meek light of winter, against the white of the snow, the color of Ripper's house is obvious.

Soft pink- like a baby's blanket.

It was totally at odds with the gruff, no nonsense woman who lived inside.

Katniss had walked past it a few times, but had never been inside, so it was just as big of a shock to discover that nearly everything in Ripper's house was pink as well. Somehow, Ripper's home was everything and nothing she had expected all at once, she musedsilently as she stood in Ripper's cluttered pink kitchen, staring at her collection of chipped, floral tea cups.

Peeta looks over at her with his eyebrows raised in disbelief.

How Ripper had managed to get pink paint, let alone enough to coat her entire house, was something of a mystery in Twelve. Seam kids liked to make up stories about it- that she had once been beautiful enough to bewitch a Capitol man, and spent the rest of her life living in relative luxury because he was sending her money.

Katniss had somewhat of a more pessimistic idea, but it was probably closer to the truth anyway. Ripper had had that paint smuggled in- probably around the same time as the last change over between head peacekeepers, which had been over 25 years ago. She figured this out around the same time she started hunting, and it had given her the confidence to realize two very important things about how to survive on her own: one, that following the laws didn't necessarily mean that she was safe, just that she was invisible, which could be both good and bad. And, if she was smart about it, she could get away with nearly anything, as long as she never got caught.

She shrugs at Peeta and smiles a little in amusement at his reaction.

"So. You're the one Haymitch was talking about. Taking over where I left off, huh?," Ripper says, stirring her tea with a spoon. She had offered tea to Peeta, but not to her.

Katniss nods and Ripper narrows her eyes.

"Do you know why I got rid of my set-up, girl?"

"It got too dangerous," she answers.

Ripper purses her lips and hums.

"It's not in very good taste to steal another woman's business."

"I know."

"Do you know how to put the still together? How to brew?"

"Thirty percent, and you help me."

"Fifty, and the still is at your house, not off in the woods."

"Forty, and we'll throw in two loaves of bread a week," Peeta interrupts.

Katniss shoots him an exasperated look, but Ripper seems intrigued by Peeta's offer. Her hard eyes sweep over him and she chews contemplatively on her pipe, her molars clattering against it loudly.

"Who are you, merchant boy?"

"I'm the baker."

Ripper laughs long and deep, her stomach quaking as she leans forward and puts her hands on her knees, and her pip clutched tightly between her teeth.

"Let me guess- Abernathy sent you."

Peeta nods, shooting Katniss a confused look.

"Always had a thing for your father, boy. Anyone ever tell you that you look just like him? I'll take your offer, but only if  _you'll_  be making the bread deliveries," says Ripper with a wink.

Katniss looks on in shock as Peeta blushes all the way up to the roots of his hair. Ripper starts laughing all over again before she extends her hand, pulling the pipe out of her mouth and wiping her eyes with a yellow, tobacco-stained index finger.

"What do you think, Baker? Do we have a deal?"

Peeta takes her hand with only a split second of hesitation and shakes once.

Ripper then describes what parts to pull out of the scrap yard and how to fit them together, and it takes them a while to figure out exactly what she's talking about because neither one of them have even seen a still, let alone know what parts make it up. That's when Peeta pulls out a book from his pocket, obviously handmade from scraps of paper, and begins to sketch what Ripper describes onto the mismatched pages. He's very good at sketching, and Katniss realizes as she watches him work that she'd seen him do this before, but she hadn't known what he was doing. In fact, she remembered him doing something like this quite often, when she felt the heavy weight of a gaze watching her and she had looked up just in time to see his eyes flicker away from her.  _Had Peeta been drawing her?_

_That didn't make any sense._

As Peeta works, Ripper winks at her over his head and Katniss fumes silently until between the two of them, they've assembled a working schematic. Katniss makes sure to usher Peeta out of the kitchen first before shooting Ripper a caustic glare over her shoulder. Ripper is completely unfazed.

"He's cute, girl. You should keep him," she says with a crocodilian smile. Katniss tries, and fails, not to slam the door on her way out.

* * *

Later, they make their way through the back alleys of the Seam toward the mines, where the junkyard lies tucked away in a copse of trees next to the slag heap. The smell of oil and burning wood is heavy in the air, made all the more pungent by how clean and wet the air had been since the snow started earlier that morning. She's wearing her pants, which are still too small, but are at least marginally more practical for rooting around in the junkyard after dark. As a precaution, she brings along her knife too, stashed safely away in her pants pocket.

They slink along the dark path that leads toward the mines, and a familiar coldness builds in her hands as they pass the dark hole in the side of the earth that leads deep into the earth.

"Are you cold?," Peeta whispers.

"No. I'm fine," she answers.

"Are you sure? Your hands are shaking."

She tucks them into her pockets.

"I'm fine."

The scrap yard rises before them, a padlock looped around the handles of the door. There's only one way in, and that's over the fence. Katniss swings herself up pretty easily, maneuvers around the barbed wire that curls around the top, but Peeta takes a long time to get himself up, and makes so much noise that she's ready to bolt long before he thuds to ground next to her.

"Could you have been any louder?," she hisses.

"Sorry," he murmurs, frowning a little.

He brings out his little book, and together they sift through what looks to be the most recent additions to the scrap yard for the appropriates pieces. Luckily, the yard is lit by enormous flood lights, even at night, and they have no trouble locating the larger parts: a giant drum for brewing, a much smaller drum to collect the alcohol, and a long, curved pipe to connect the two. The other parts are smaller and take them significantly longer to dig up, but they manage to cobble everything together long before midnight.

They're just organizing how to carry everything back when they hear the gate rattling and voices drifting towards them.

"Katniss-go," Peeta says hurriedly. "Go. We have to run!"

She's struck suddenly by a memory of a voice wreathed in smoke and fire . It had echoed her ears as the world around her grew silent and still, and a liquid darkness crept in before swallowing her completely. Had it been in her own mind that she had heard it? Or had it been real?

"Katniss- c'mon!"

He tugs her up and they run toward the copse of tree at the very edge of the back of the yard. The gate swings open on rusty hinges behind them, and she can just make out a male voice calling out into the yard.

"If anyone is here, come out now!"

She runs faster than she ever has before, feet beating the earth as she ducks and dodges the jagged edges of scrap metal that jut out of the piles of junk, not pausing for breath until she's tucked safely behind a tree as far back into the yard as she can get. Its then that she remembers Peeta, and pokes her head out to see where he is.

There's a moment where she can't see him in the fathomless dark. All she sees are the moonlit outlines of the trees and plants immediately around her. She can hear him though, crashing through the brush, and she desperately hopes the peacekeepers are far enough away that they don't hear him too. After a tense few seconds he finally emerges and runs head on towards her hiding spot, nearly passing it in his clumsy haste. At the last second, she catches his wrist and yanks him toward her until there's barely a hair between them, and his hands crash on either side of her head against the tree.

"It's better if they find us like this," she murmurs between heaving breaths. "You know, like we got lost on our way to the slag heap."

This wouldn't be the first time kids had snuck into the scrap yard when the slag heap had been occupied, and rumors that they had snuck off together could only help their case anyway.

He nods mutely, eyes wide, as her heart hammers in her chest. Sweat prickles her neck and forehead, but she doesn't know whether its his proximity or her desperate sprint that causes it.

Beams of light flash dizzyingly through the yard, illuminating piles of scrap metal and the wiry trees that tower over them. Its still snowing, and pinprick snowflakes dance around them in dreamy gusts, catching in their hair and on their jackets. Her breath comes quick but steady as her gaze drifts from over Peeta's shoulder to his face.

He's watching her, and as their eyes meet she watches his pupils dilate, fat and black against thin rings of wet blue. He blinks.

His eyelashes are completely bewildering. How had she not noticed them before? They're so long it's incredible they don't tangle every time he closes his eyes, and she spies a daring few snowflakes have perched on their ends.

Voices echo around the yard indistinguishable from one another. A flashlight beam sears a tree a few feet to their right, and she can feel him suck in a quick breath.

The voices are a scant few feet away, and as the peacekeepers search. Her eyes screw shut, hands fisting in Peeta's jacket. The bottom of her stomach drops out as a branch snaps directly behind them, and a man's voice booms out through the darkness.

"Clear!"

A round of other 'clears' echo back. His booted footsteps punctuate his statement by moving back toward the main part of the yard.

"We're ok," Peeta whispers. "We're ok. They're leaving."

She opens her eyes and unknots her hands from Peeta's jacket. A shaking sigh of relief escapes her. Peeta pokes his head out to peer around the tree.

"Ok, they're definitely leaving."

Peeta makes them wait until the Peacekeepers are long gone before they emerge from behind the tree.

"I always hated the hiding part of hide and seek," she mutters, stepping over a thick pipe.

"But I'll bet you were a great seeker," he says.

She smirks.

"I was."

They pick their way through the trees to where they had abandoned the parts for the still. The larger drum is made of metal, but its hollow, and Peeta easily throws it over his shoulder, like it weighs no more than a sack of flour, and grabs the pipe as well. Katniss heaves the other smaller drum over her shoulder, stuffs the other parts in her jacket pockets, and they make their way through the precarious heaps of scrap metal that surround them. Jumping the fence this time is tricky, as they both have to climb one handed, but somehow they manage it with only minimally more noise than before, and take off down a shortcut through the woods back towards the Seam without looking back. If the Peacekeepers hear them scale the fence a second time, they certainly don't come running to try to catch them.

It's lucky that the snow picks up, because by the time they're making their way towards Katniss' tiny house she realizes they hadn't even thought about how to get the parts into her home without being seen.

She really had no reason to worry, however. Its so dark and snowy that even if someone were to look out their windows, they wouldn't be sure of what they saw. She and Peeta are just two dark shadows drifting silently through the night.

Peeta is quiet and distracted on the walk back to her house, his free hand tucked deeply in his pocket. She pretends not to notice.

They tromp up the steps to her porch, tapping their boots against the posts to rattle out the snow that collected in their treads. As he sets the drum down carefully, she observes the look of concentration on his face.

Whether or not she wanted to be, she was in this with him now. There were people depending on her for survival, and she can't afford to slip up. All the same, it could be much, much worse. Peeta had proven his strength over and over, but she's more grateful for it now more than ever. She can trust him. He won't let her down.

She feels that thing again- that warm fluttering in her stomach. Butter was something she had only tried once, back when her father was still alive, but somehow this feels how she remembered butter tasted- slippery, smooth and warm.

He looks up and frowns slightly.

"Katniss, is there a squirrel hanging from your door?"

"Yeah... do you want it?"

_Problem solved._

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anything good that happened in this chapter is because of my beautifully talented beta Opaque!
> 
> Thanks to all my lovely reviewers from last chapter, and all my silent readers as well! I see you lurking in my stats and it brings me joy ;)
> 
> To all my regular reviewers who are here every chapter, a special thank you to goes out to you and all you've done for my poor insecure soul. I am always excited to see what you'll have to say about the new chapter, and have read every one of your reviews. You guys are seriously the best!
> 
> See you all next week!


	8. Color, Composition and Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Its just better if he takes care of it. He’ll know what to do to make it seem as if she were equally involved. He won’t let her down.

 

_**viii.** _

* * *

The snow is falling in heavy clumps as Katniss stares out her soot streaked kitchen window onto the porch and the street beyond. An amorphorous cloud on the glass balloons and contracts in sync with her breathing, and she's momentarily distracted by the way its edges creep rhythmically back and forth.

Prim doesn't remember that at this time five years ago they were nearly starving, but she does. Katniss lists all the things they have now that they didn't then- money, food, coal… her eyes slip to her sister's feet underneath the table and she adds Prim's new boots, which she was proud to pay outright for with the money she saved up from the bakery. It had nearly wiped out what she saved, but there was no way around it. Prim needed new boots, and this time around there were no hand-me-downs because Katniss had worn through the tread on her old ones.

New boots weren't something she herself had ever had, but buying them for Prim made it feel as if they were hers anyway. Prim adored them too, and Katniss felt absolutely swollen with warmth the first morning Prim had worn them to school.

It's just her and Prim now, but they're going to be just fine.

Her headaches are even gone, for the most part. As for her seizures, though, there was no telling what would happen. No way to know when they were coming, no way to know if they were over… the only way to track them would be to actually have another one, and though she had very little idea of what they were besides black spaces in her mind, she knew that whatever they were doing to her, it couldn't be good.

She watches the fog on the window as it stills.

"Don't mind Katniss. She's just spacey today," Prim whispers dramatically from behind her.

"Who's being spacey?" she says as she turns around. Rory, who's sitting at the table with Prim, grins and shakes his head.

"You are. Did you even hear what Rory asked you? Or is that snow piling up in your head too?" Prim laughs.

"I am not being spacey," she mutters. "What did Rory ask?"

"He wanted to know what we were doing for your birthday."

"Nothing."

"Aw, Katniss, c'mon. You never do anything on your birthday."

"Ok. I'll spend all day in bed- alone. I'll sleep- all day. No one will talk to me, or ask me to do anything. And then I can wait another year and do it all over again."

Rory and Prim share a significant glance over their steaming mugs of tea, as if saying to one another "Of course that's what she wants to do."

Katniss rolls her eyes and turns back to look out the window again.

"Anything interesting going on out there?" Rory needles with a snicker.

"She's waiting for Peeta."

"Isn't that her boss?"

"Yeah. They're going to check on stuff."

Katniss rubs the bridge of her nose.

"Prim. Don't talk about-"

A knock on the front door interrupts them. Katniss points a finger at Prim in warning.

"I mean it. Not a word."

"Ok, ok. I get it. Answer the door already."

She tugs open the door and for a moment, she's too stunned to say anything. Gale stands on her porch, hands tucked into his jacket and eyes trained to the left of her face, acting for all the world as if the kiss and fight, never happened.

"Hey. Ma wants Rory home."

She moves aside and jerks her head in Gale's direction as she looks at Rory.

Rory purses his lips and quickly throws his pack over his shoulder, stumbling slightly as he leaps out of his chair.

"See ya Prim," he mumbles quietly, and rushes out of the house.

Katniss watches as Rory leaves with Gale impassively, then closes the door with a determined snap before Gale can say anything else.

"I hate that you're fighting," grumbles Prim. "Rory is so awkward about it, and I miss everybody." By everybody, she means Hazel, Posy and Vick. Katniss sighs as she clears Rory's mug from the table and puts it in the sink.

"Is it because of what happened with Madge?" Prim asks, and Katniss jerks her arm as she scrubs the mug with much more force than is necessary. How did Prim know about that?

"Drop it Prim."

"Ok, jeez. Then come sit down- your tea is getting cold."

* * *

As November comes to a blustery close, Delly decides that Katniss is more bark than bite and takes up residence in Madge's abandoned chair at the lunch table. Unsure of what exactly to do about this, Katniss reluctantly allows her to. There's a lovely consolation prize in that Delly seems to hate cheese, but love sharing, so Katniss finds it a little hard to turn down her company even when she insists on talking non-stop.

There's a strangeness to their relationship that even Katniss can feel. She's not sure if its because what brought them together is someone who is almost never present during their interactions, or if it is because whenever Delly talks about him she feels her stomach tighten and twist hotly. Whatever the case, Delly seems to catch on quickly that Katniss doesn't really like discussing Peeta, so she studiously avoids bringing him up.

That doesn't mean Katniss doesn't think about him when she is with Delly.

Delly and Peeta are very close. In what way, she can't entirely understand, because on the one hand, they still spend a lot of time together, but on the other, Delly doesn't seem to mind Katniss' presence in the bakery, or her 'engagement' to Peeta. If anything, it seems to make her more enthusiastic about Katniss. Once again, Katniss got the distinct impression that there is something she is missing.

The last day of November sees her mulling this over as Delly rattles on about something she only half listens to. Gnawing on her bread pensively, she completely misses the fight brewing on the other side of the cafeteria until punches are being thrown.

"Oh," Delly says. "What do you think is going on?"

Katniss shrugs. Whatever it is, getting involved would be a mistake. Out of habit, her eyes flicker over to where Gale and Madge are sitting. They are oblivious to her as they watch the fight.

People mill around uselessly as peacekeepers file in and shove their way to the front.

Standing suddenly, she grabs Delly's arm.

"Time to get out of here," she mutters.

Delly is about to follow her when another girl rushes by them, a gush of dark blood leaking freely from her nose down her face. Delly seems to freeze as her eyes follow the gore, and her hands rises to cup her mouth. Katniss recognizes the girl behind the blood- its a Seam girl Gale's age named Thistle, and it looks like she's been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Exactly what Katniss is trying to avoid.

Thistle is tall, and though not immediately pretty, has a way about her that suggests that she is. Her eyes always seemed to be laughing at a joke only she knew, and the perpetual wry twist to her lips implies the joke was about you. Her hair was long and black, and she let it fall in a loose sheet around her shoulders. She was popular among young men from the Seam, probably more than anything because she had a wicked sense of humor and spent a lot of time leaning against buildings or standing on street corners with them.

"We should help her," Delly says breathlessly. "That looks broken."

"Go ahead if you want," says Katniss with a slight frown. She hadn't known they were friends.

Like Katniss, Thistle had found an illegal source of income early in her life, and was reaping the rewards of cornering an abandoned part of the black market in Twelve. If you needed liquor or meat, you looked for Katniss. If you needed a tattoo, you looked for Thistle. Her mother had passed on giving birth to her, and her father was miner, so more often than not, Thistle had the run of the house. It was there that with a collection of handmade dyes and sewing needles, she set in skin whatever crude design was brought to her.

Though Katniss understood the necessity of doing whatever you could to keep food on the table, probably a little better than most, she felt weak kneed at the idea of doing what Thistle did. Something about it seemed unclean, and dangerous in a more insidious way than poaching.

She wonders how Delly and Thistle know each other, and whether or not Delly is aware of how Thistle makes her living.

"C'mon Katniss, you know more about this than I do."

Katniss trails after Delly with a scowl set on her face.

"No. Not really."

"But your mother-"

"I'm not as good as she was."

"Well, you'll be better than I am. C'mon."

They follow the trail of blood that dots the hallway floor to the bathroom, where they find Thistle leaning over the sink. Katniss quickly averts her eyes from the splatter of red collecting in the cracked, white porcelain.

"Um, Thistle?" says Delly softly, "Are you ok?"

Thistle looks up from the sink, blood leaking over her mouth and down her chin.

"Peachy keen," she says, a weird nasal tone in her voice. Delly moves toward her cautiously.

"Do you want any help?"

"No. Obviously this is under control," Thistle mumbles angrily.

Thistle looks back down at the sanguine mess in the sink and turns the tap on. Katniss tears her eyes away again and looks up at the ceiling. She's never liked blood- not its unmistakable scent, so heavy you can taste it in the back of your throat, and especially not the way it looks as it oozes out of an injury.

"Katniss... do you think its broken?" Delly asks nervously.

She jerks her eyes down from the mold on the ceiling to Thistle's rapidly swelling nose. Moving closer cautiously, she does her best to visually check for a break. The skin is too puffy and dark to tell. Suddenly, she's light-headed. A little dizzy.

"You'll need to wait and see," she mumbles. "Too swollen right now."

"You ok, Katniss? You look a little pale-"

"I have to go."

She rushes out of the tiny bathroom and leans her back against the wall. Breathing steadily, she lets her head drop back against the cool, rough surface behind her and closes her eyes.

Delly doesn't follow her. She doesn't see her for the rest of the day.

She does, unfortunately, see Haymitch. He'd promised to help her navigate the murky waters of an engagement she's barely been able to fake. She, Peeta and Haymitch sit down in the back of the bakery after they close and discuss their options. Peeta and Haymitch talk strategy, she tries not to look as bored as she feels. Its quickly decided that Peeta doesn't really need much coaching- its her that's the problem.

They run through a few ideas of what kind of 'in love' she could be, but none of them really seem to fit. Flirtatious is shot down immediately. She's not dreamily happy either, nor is she cuddly (Haymitch scoffs), shy (Peeta snorts), or passionate (she rolls her eyes). She's not really anything, and her acting skills are not up to the challenge of convincing a seasoned head peacekeeper. Haymitch throws the towel in after nearly an hour, taking a deep swig out of his flask and pushing his chair back from the table.

"That's it," he says. "Just do your best not to fuck it up too badly."

He staggers out the door and she grinds her teeth.

"You know," says Peeta slowly. "You could just let me handle it."

She looks up at him.

"You mean you'll do all that stuff on your own… and I'll what? Sit there?"

"You just be you, and I'll work around it."

She considers this. There are girls from the Seam, and some Merchant class as well, for whom these types of things come naturally. May even be enjoyable. But she's not one of them. It's not even like she has been very observant of how these things were meant to play out. Once again, she reaches back through her memories to her parents, and a hurt so raw flashes through her that she immediately decides that Peeta is right.

Its just better if he takes care of it. He'll know what to do to make it seem as if she were equally involved. He won't let her down.

She nods, and then, impulsively, reaches across the table to touch his hand, just as she had tried to before, when Peeta had jumped and ruined it all in front of Thread. His skin is warm under hers. Something buttery and curious flutters in her stomach and then disappears.

"Thanks," she says, and pulls her hand away.

In the days that follow, she has to get used to that strange feeling, because Peeta touches her more and usually her first instinct is to jerk away. But she can't do that.

He knows not to push it. Hands, arms, shoulders. That's all. Once, her waist when she leaned into his side in front of a store full of customers. It's casual, with just the right balance of cozy and suggestive. She had been right, Peeta is good at this. She had no chance of pulling off lovesick young bride-to-be, but Peeta figures out how to make people love her, just as he is pretending to.

Their big moment comes by accident. She had been measuring out a flour mixture and had been caught up with keeping all the numbers straight. Since Peeta let her start doing the books on her own, he and Katniss had figured out the right mix of flours to continue to augment the nutrition of the tesserae until their extra funds from the liquor could cover the difference. In the mean time, the mix of flours was complicated, and they couldn't afford to get the proportions wrong. She was so focused on her task, she didn't realize she had put her hands on her hips, leaving white hand prints behind.

Thread comes that afternoon to check their books, and she's so nervous that she's going to mess up as badly as Haymitch predicted that the moment he enters the kitchen she bustles to the front room, leaving Peeta all on his own. Wallowing in her own cowardice, she makes up silly things to do to seem busy while Peeta talks to Thread. When he's gone, Peeta bursts into the front of the shop, and for a moment, she thinks he's angry at her for leaving him alone. But he grins broadly and shakes his head.

"Brilliant, Katniss!" he says, "How did you think of that?"

"Think of what?" she asks.

He motions to the flour prints of hands on her waist. Her eyes flash to his hands, covered in flour from rolling out an extra batch of dough to put in the oven the next morning. Her own hands are clean.

She had been embarrassed and flustered, and of course Thread had connected dots that she had drawn completely unwittingly. Too relieved to be embarrassed, she shakes her head.

"It was an accident," she says. "I didn't mean to do that, I just was just so focused on what I was doing. I didn't even notice until now."

"Accident or not, you nailed it."

"I think we found what kind of 'in love' I am," she teases with a smirk, "Oblivious."

* * *

December dawns light and airy, with a reprieve from the snowstorms that have drifted languidly over the district. It's the kind of weather she likes- cold without cutting to the bone, with a bluish wintery glow cast by meek sunlight. It's been over a month since her last headache, and even though in the past, changing weather meant skull-splitting migraines, she's remained miraculously pain free.

With her favorite weather comes dense brown bread from the bakery, which she adores. They have enough money to buy mink oil for their boots and pants for her. Admittedly, the pants aren't exactly new, just gently worn. The inside of the thighs have been rubbed thin, and the pockets were impractically small, but she could make do. It's Delly who provides a solution in the end. She trades Katniss a lesson in what she knows about medicine for a some leather scraps to patch up her pants. It's a bad trade on Delly's end, but Katniss makes sure that she knows how limited her knowledge is and Delly still insisted.

Katniss uses the leather and a special needle Delly loans her to patch the insides of the thighs and knees, and then she fashions some external pockets with what's result is practical, if a little rough, and she rather likes the pants once they've been finished.

More gifts come leading up to her actual birthday. A metal tea strainer from Prim. A pair of stockings from Hazel. Even Darius the peacekeeper has something for her- an automatic flint he calls a 'lighter'. Its unbelievably thoughtful of him, so much so that she is momentarily taken aback. She'd hasn't even seen him since the Hob shut down.

The night before her birthday Gale shows up, and she's filled with anger and a smug happiness all at once. Angry because he still has yet to apologize, and happy because she had thought he might forget her birthday entirely, and as upset with him as she was, there was a desperate, deep part of her that had wanted him to come to her in spite of everything. He doesn't say much of anything to her, and what he does say is forced. She can feel hurt radiating off him like heat from coals.

'Good,' she thinks.

"Here," he says, thrusting a cloth wrapped bundle at her. She goes to open it, but he stops her.

"Later, ok?" he says, "Wait until you're inside."

She nods.

And then he's gone before she can say anything else. It's good that he told her to wait. Good that she listened. As she unwraps the package, the scent of cedar and tallow fills the room. She'd know that scent anywhere, and she can't believe what she's seeing as the wrappings fall away.

Gale has made her a bow.

It's a little rough. Not as refined in terms of craftsmanship as her father's had been. But she couldn't turn her nose up at something Gale had made just for her.

So that was what he was working on this whole time from the cedar branch he dragged back months ago. Its unbelievable the planning that went into this- no wonder he had risked coming to see her. He had put so much time into making this. Had risked so much. All to give her a bow she may never get to use.

Suddenly unbearably guilty, her fingers clench the cloth that had covered Gale's gift. She quickly rewraps it and shoves it under a sweater in her mother's dresser. She needs time to think about this. Time to formulate what it means, both for her friendship with Gale, and her future ability secure a little more money.

Despite this, her heart soars in giddy anticipation of when she can sneak away to test it out.

Her actual birthday is uneventful. She spends the day in bed just as she had threatened to do, nibbling on bread and making half-hearted attempts at knitting something with the wool and needles that had once belonged to her mother. Prim sits in bed with her, and between the two of them they manage to cobble together a loose rectangle. They laugh both at how terrible it is and take it out, starting all over.

They only put pants on when they leave bed to make dinner, and they're cleaning off the table when a knock sounds at the front door. It's Peeta.

"Someone told me it was your birthday," he says.

"It was me," Prim whispers loudly. Katniss shoots her a glare, but Prim just chuckles and sticks her tongue out.

She stands to the side to let Peeta inside with a gust of swirling snow and frigid air. Pulling her sweater closed over her chest, she crosses her arms tightly as Peeta withdraws a wrapped package from his jacket.

"Prim said you didn't want anything, but I couldn't resist."

He sets the package down on the table and unwraps it as she purses her lips.

"You really didn't have to," she grumbles, and picks at her sweater uncomfortably. She glances out the window and notes with some irritation that the ground is covered in several inches of snow. Peeta has trecked all the way out to the Seam because of Prim.

She glares at Prim, who ignores her entirely. As she does, she can hear Peeta unwrapping the package on the table. Katniss watches Prim's face change from mildly curious to shock. She quickly shifts her gaze to the table, where Peeta's gift to her has been removed from its heavy brown paper wrappings.

Two small roses, one a creamy pinkish white, the second a deep red, lay nestled in tiny aluminium cups. Where had Peeta found roses in winter?

Stepping forward instinctively, she realizes the roses are set in pie crusts. Did he expect her to eat a flower? Her heart stutters when she smells baked apple and realizes they aren't flowers at all, but artfully shaped apple tarts. The petals were made of thin slices of apple and coated in sugar and spices which were then layered concentrically, one around the other, until a rose was formed. The pinkish skin of the apple had been left on, creating a startling realism in that the very tips of the petals were rosier than the rest.

"Peeta," she breathes, and her eyes widen. "These are-"

"Oh my god Peeta, did you make those?" cries Prim.

Peeta gives a little shrug and smiles. Katniss drifts back from the table and watches her sister as she fawns over the little desserts. The cream colored one is for apparently for Prim, and she coos happily as Peeta gives it to her. It's no bigger than the palm of her hand.

The red one must be hers.

Its tiny. It isn't anything, in the scope of things he has done for her.

But it feels different.

She swallows. The strange unreality that washes over her is something she has felt once before. She was high in a tree, balanced on a delicate branch as it swayed in the breeze. Twenty feet in the air, maybe thirty... she can't remember, she had just climbed up until she couldn't anymore, and her hands and feet were sweating and cold.

The snapping of the branch had affected her viscerally, and as her body fell through space, she felt it: the racing pulse, the sudden emptiness in her chest, a terrifying weightlessness...

And underneath it all, that melting, that warmth she had only felt a few times before, and always because of Peeta.

"Katniss?"

She looks up to find Peeta watching her worriedly.

Prim rolls her eyes, but her lips twitch into a smirk.

"Don't worry. She's just spacing out. She's been doing that a lot lately." Prim takes her pastry and flounces over to the couch in front of the fireplace, tugging a ratty quilt around her shoulders as she goes.

Katniss is quiet for a moment, eyes flickering between the table and Peeta.

"I can't eat that," she rasps.

Peeta's smile twitches and he looks down at his hands and then back at the table. Guilt hits her like a brick to the skull. There's a puzzle in his expression and the pieces are all there to solve it, but she's not sure how exactly they slot together. The picture they're supposed to make is too unfamiliar.

She's been silent too long. He's waiting for an explanation, but he could wait all his life and she'd still never know what she meant.

"Its beautiful," she mutters. "I've never even.."

Peeta stills, before picking up the pastry. Her boots are the safest thing in the room to stare at, so she does that.

"Here," he says, grabbing her palm and placing the little tart in it. "I made it for you. So, eat it or not, it's yours."

It's still warm.

The deep rubine petals bloom so vividly that if it weren't for its sweet, spicy scent she never would have guessed it was even food. How had he managed to get this color? Of all colors to reproduce with or without Capitol grade dyes, a dark red is the hardest to achieve, and yet somehow Peeta has done it.

"I can't take the credit for the color," he says, as if reading her mind. "It's just beet juice. Delly's idea."

She touches one of the petals with a curious finger. Its nearly paper thin, just like a real petal would be.

How could she bare to eat this? Why would he give her the kind of present that would only disappear, one way or another? What if she had wanted to keep it?

"Katniss," says Peeta softly. "It's just a pastry. I could make this any day."

When it's put like that, her decision is easier. They wrap themselves in their coats and sit on the edge of her back porch with steaming cups of tea, swinging their legs idly and watching the snow fall.

She nibbles at it slowly, dreading the moment its finally finished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I know Katniss' birthday isn't in December, but its her cannon birthday today. So oops. This universe is extra alternate.
> 
> Special thanks to the ever lovely Opaque, who is my fantastic beta and the only reason this story has gotten as far as it has. And a huge thank you to my reviewers as well! You guys are the sweetest- really. I so look forward to hearing from you every week!
> 
> I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but if you're interested in outtakes and previews, come find me on tumblr (check my profile for the link). I usually post something twice a week. I also have previews up for the newest installment for the 'Without' series, titled 'Home is in Your Skin', which is tentatively slated for June :)
> 
> See you next week!


	9. Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gale is right. If its not today, it will be someday. The Capitol will have them all, in the end. What choice did they really have? They could die on their knees, or on their feet. Either way they are just as dead.

_**ix.** _

* * *

" _In Panem We Trust"_ the poster reads. Katniss frowns, eyes sweeping left, then right, as she walks through the Seam in the shadowy twilight. It was one of many that had gone up overnight after the first week of December, blazing red and gold on houses, street corners and the electricity poles that supplied (intermittent) power across Twelve.

Tugging her coat closed over her chest with one hand, she dips her head down and focuses on the road in front of her. No good will come of looking around too much.

Her other hand is wrapped around the edge of a basket of laundry, which she has perched on her hip as she makes her way to Ripper's house. Peeta's already waiting by the time she gets there, his arms crossed over his chest as he leans against a rotted fence post.

He grins slowly as she approaches and his arms fall by his side.

"Hey you," he says, and tucks a piece of her hair that has fallen out of her braid behind her ear. "How was your trip?"

No matter how many times he does this, she always has to remind herself that its just for show.

It's not for her. Its for anyone who is watching.

"Fine," she says. "Let's go."

They ascend the steps to Ripper's door and just as they knock she swings the door wide open and urges them inside with an impatient wave of her hand.

"You're late. What took so long?" she grunts with a frown.

Katniss' eyes flick around the house before she mutters her reply.

"Peacekeepers."

Ripper's frown deepens, and her brows knit together. Katniss sets the laundry basket down with a heavy thunk on the kitchen table and Ripper wastes no time in pushing aside the clothing to reveal twelve mason jars full of clear liquid.

"This all?" she asks.

"No," Katniss answers, "There'll be more by tomorrow."

Ripper grabs a jar and unscrews a lid, bringing the mouth of the jar to her nose. She breathes in deeply and her eyes squinch tight.

Katniss turns to roll her eyes at Peeta.

"Girl, you keep rolling those eyes and they'll spin right out of your head," Ripper snaps without opening her eyes.

Peeta snickers. After their initial interaction, he had developed an annoyingly saccharine rapport with Ripper, proving once and for all to Katniss that he had the ability to charm literally anyone.

Ripper smirks in self satisfaction and her eyes fly open.

"Good. Better this time," she mutters and screws the lid back on. "You're all set to go. Twelve houses tonight, can you make that before the curfew?"

The curfew is also new. Twelve has never had one that Katniss can remember, but Ripper assures her that it has happened before. It was set for 10pm, just three short hours after the mines let out. The whole exercise seemed pointless- most people were tucked safely away at home after 8pm anyway. It was too cold out, and most Seam residents were either too exhausted from the mines or child care to want to parade around the streets after dark. It seemed to Katniss that it was more about power than control.

"It'll be tight," she says, scratching her cheek. "I think we'll make it though."

Ripper nods distractedly, tucking the bottle back underneath the clothes in the basket.

"Don't you keep that boy out late," she says, "You hear me? I don't want you getting him into trouble."

"Hey now," Peeta says with a laugh, "How do you know it's not me getting  _her_  into trouble?"

Ripper smirks at him.

"You wouldn't do a girl wrong, would you Peeta Mellark?"

"Never," he says cheekily. "Been known to keep one waiting though…"

Ripper laughs deeply.

"Go on, get out, get out. You two got bootleg to shake."

* * *

School lets out for winter break, and Katniss promises Delly she'll make time to see her. Of course, she has no real intention of doing so. Delly has gotten smart though, and finds her at the bakery on only their second day off. It's late afternoon when she pops in, the shop already bathed in the weak orange glow of a winter twilight.

"Hey you! Long time no see!" she says with a wink at Katniss as she slips behind the counter.

Before Katniss can push her away, she's enveloped her in a quick, but warm, hug.

"You were never going to visit me, were you?"

Katniss shrugs, but smirks a little.

"I would have tried," she fibs.

Delly snorts.

"That is definitely a lie. Has anyone ever told you what a bad liar you are? You get this tight little smile like you think no one can tell-"

"Delly!" Peeta interrupts as he pops his head into the store, "I thought I heard you. What are you doing here?"

Delly bounces past Katniss and wraps Peeta in a hug as well. Katniss glances down at the counter as she fists the dishrag in her hand.

"Hey Peeta," she says, "Oooh, I missed you. I never get to see you anymore."

Peeta rubs the back of his neck.

"Been busy here, Dell."

"You're a liar too, Peeta Mellark. How hard could it possibly be, running a bakery on you own?" she admonishes with a giggle.

Peeta laughs.

"Obviously not hard enough to satisfy you."

"And nothing ever will be," she sings.

They disappear into the back room, only for Delly to pop her head out a moment later.

"Well, don't stay out here alone. Come on, nobody wants bread bad enough to brave this cold!"

It turns out that Delly is right, and the three of them spend the afternoon in the kitchen, idly picking at day-olds and chatting. Thistle is Delly's newest friend and, much to Katniss' irritation, seems to be all she can talk about.

"Was she like this with me?" she mutters to Peeta, and he chokes on the bread he is swallowing.

He shakes his head vigorously and says, "No."

Delly drops her gaze to her hands and picks at her nails nervously.

"Alright," she says, flustered. "So I'm a little enthusiastic about a new friend. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," says Katniss. "You're just very... excited. More than usual, I mean."

"Delly's just friendly," says Peeta smoothly. "I think we can finish the rye. It doesn't sell as well as on the second day."

He gets up and cuts a loaf of rye in half, then into smaller slices, before laying it out on the table. A sudden crack and muffled scream from outside makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Her head whips toward the kitchen door, propped open to offset the dissipating heat from the ovens, where the sound had leaked in.

"What was that?" Delly breathes.

More sounds drift in- people talking in low voices and moving with hurried footsteps.

"I don't know," Katniss says.

Peeta has a strange look on his face- like an anxious sort of wince- but it melts away quickly as he moves to close the door.

"Something's probably going on in the square."

"Should we go see?" Delly asks.

"No," says Katniss, "We shouldn't."

She and Peeta share a look.

"So how's Thistle's nose?" he says without skipping a beat. "You never finished telling us what happened."

Delly sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes.

"Well, turns out it wasbroken in the end, but I think she's  _actually enjoying_  the whole situation. She has this strange bump now, and her eyes are still both black, but its like she's weirdly proud of it or something."

Katniss stays later than she means to, too drowsy and heavy from eating all afternoon to keep track of the time. Delly gripes about having to go back out into the cold, so Peeta makes her spicy cinnamon tea to keep her warm on the walk. He gives a mug of it to Katniss as well after Delly heads out, but it only serves to make her more reluctant to finally leave.

When she tells him this with a sleepy glare and all he does is laugh.

"I can go with you, if you want," he says. "But we'd better start out soon."

She turns down his offer to walk her, but he insists and the reminder that its getting late is what prompts her to finally bundle up. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose burn red as they step outside and set off into the night, but she's so sleepy and warm that it hardly matters. With the soft leather of her father's jacket wrapped around her, she's cozy despite the frigid temperatures.

Under the flickering lamplight, she and Peeta make their way down the street, the muffled crunch of their boots in the snow the only sounds to be heard. She's reminded, as they pass through the town square, of what they had heard earlier. The sharp crack, the muffled voices…

She doesn't know what it was that they had heard. She doesn't want to.

"It's cold," she mumbles, and tucks herself under his arm. Anyone could be watching.

"Yes, it is," he answers, his eyes flitting over to the post in the middle of the square.

* * *

That night when she gets home Prim tells her that Rory has a cold, and she makes up her mind to catch Gale alone Sunday morning before he slips through the fence. With the bakery closed and all their 'laundry' taken care of for the week, she finally has a day all to herself. She rises before dawn, dresses quickly and is at the fence earlier than she expects.

She doesn't wait for Gale long. He is almost never late, and is dependably nearing the fence just as the vibrant pink light of dawn fades.

Its feels like nothing has changed.

He does a double take when he sees her waiting and adjusts his bag over his shoulder with a frown.

"Hey," he says, eyes guarded. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting."

"For?"

"You."

"Katniss," Gale says with a huff, "I'm not letting you go out there."

She shrugs and smirks.

"You couldn't stop me."

Its a dare.

Gale watches her impassively as she sweeps a tendril of hair behind her ear. In all likelihood, he could probably physically restrain her. Gale's legs are longer, and though his frame is quite large, he is unexpectedly nimble. He'd catch her in flash, but she'd fight him tooth and nail. It doesn't seem like he's even considering this, however. Gale's dark gaze is locked on her, as though he could pick her apart with his eyes alone.

"Besides, don't you want to see if I can still out shoot you?" she says.

He grins in spite of himself and looks down at his boots before staring out beyond the fence.

"Alright. But we stay close to the fence. And if you start to feel-"

Katniss rolls her eyes and slips through the fence easily.

"Yeah, alright. I get it. Come on."

Gale follows and jogs to catch up to her. They walk side by side as the snowy forest stretches out before them, framed by mountains whose tops disappear into the soupy clouds overhead. Katniss raises her hand to her forehead briefly in awe of how clear-headed she is despite the oncoming storm clouds.

"How's your head been?" Gale asks.

"Fine," she says. "Haven't had a headache in weeks."

"I told you, didn't I?" he says, gazing upwards at the snow covered boughs overhead as they enter the forest. "You'll be fine. You got this thing beat."

Warmth rushes through her and they make their way to a clearing in comfortable silence. A weight lifts from her chest as the clean, frozen air of the woods rushes into her lungs. In the weeks and months since her first seizure, she never considered how much she actually missed this place, but now, ankle deep in soft snow and dead leaves, she can feel it.

Or maybe she's just missed her best friend.

They stop at the far end of the clearing and Gale leans back against a tree, raising an eyebrow at her expectantly.

"Hop to it, Everdeen."

Tugging the bow out of her pack, she grins and notches an arrow. Suddenly, Gale is all business.

"Hold it there," he says, pushing off the tree to circle her. "I just want to see-"

He leans in close to inspect the various joints of the bow and tests the tensile strength of the string with a finger. Seemingly satisfied, he steps back and motions for her to continue.

_Steady._  She calms her breath, closes one eye and brings the bow up.  _Aim._  What are the wind conditions? Where is her breath?  _Focus._ The only thing that exists in the world is the tree in front of her and the tip of her arrow.

She lets the arrow fly and it thunks deep into the tree across the clearing. With a slight smirk, she turns to Gale and offers him the bow.

"How close you think you'll get to that? I'm guessing you'll be left by a few inches."

He laughs and takes it, notching and shooting off an arrow of his own. It lands six inches to the left of hers, just as she predicted. She laughs at the frown on his face.

"Little bit tight," he says inspecting the string of the bow. "That should fade with time. Hows it work for you?"

"Fine. You're just mad I can still kick your ass up and down this forest with just a bow and arrow."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Maybe it'll be for you. I'm sure I'll be fine."

Despite what Gale said about staying close to the fence, they go deep into the woods seeking progressively more difficult targets. They shoot a few squirrels, but only Katniss manages to get them through the eye. The steadily increasing weight of her game bag feels satisfying as it knocks against her hip.

Sometime around noon, judging by the position of the sun in the sky, they stop for a lunch of bread and goat cheese and Katniss jokes about cooking some of their fresh squirrel with her new lighter. The wood around them is too wet to light, and the only other thing they could potentially use to burn are pine needles, which smoke something awful.

Gale is fascinated by the lighter and is actually serious about using it to try to cook until he inspects it and by shaking it, reveals the secret of how it works. He holds the plastic body up to the sky, where the shadow of the liquid inside is revealed in the light.

"It's a flint combined with a highly flammable fuel source," he explains. "Pretty smart, actually. You don't need much force to start the flame like you would with a regular flint, because the fuel will basically combust when it hits the air. I'm guessing the stuff inside is butane."

"Thanks Professor Hawthorne," she drawls.

" _Ha ha._  Where'd you even get this?"

"You're not going to believe me. It was that red-headed peacekeeper."

Instead of being amused by this, Gale scowls.

"Why'd he do that?"

"Probably so you could give me lecture me about butane."

He is considerably less talkative after that, and they split up to forage for anything that might be growing under the snow like ramps or edible roots. When the air gets frigid and the sunlight wanes, they turn back.

"I missed you," Gale says suddenly.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she laughs. "It's not like I've gone anywhere."

Gale looks at her out of the corner of his eye and rubs his neck.

"Yeah. You did. You left."

She glares at her boots as they sink into the snow and, as they lift, reveal the brown-black rotted leaves beneath.

"It's your own fault," she says, her eyebrows cinching together, "What was I supposed to do?"

Gale's hands dive into his pockets and his mouth tightens.

"You could have stayed. Posy asks about you, you know."

"And what do you tell her? That me and Prim missed the view from our old house?"

"I told her the truth. That we got in a fight."

"That's not why I left and you know it."

"Well, what  _should_  I have told her?" he says mockingly as he breaks a small icicle off a branch and inspects it sullenly.

"You didn't have to tell her anything if you were just going to lie."

"You're one to talk," he snorts.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's not true, is it?" he says, "What they say about you and the baker kid?"

She glares out into the trees. There's some time yet before they reach the forest's edge. Her stomach twists as she tells him. No. It isn't true.

"Then why, wherever I go, do I hear about you and your  _fiance_?"

Gale throws the icicle at a tree trunk. It snaps and falls to the ground where it disappears into the snow.

"You don't know. I never told you. Commander Thread would have killed me. Might have hurt Prim. Peeta saved all of us- more than once. I owe him my life, and so do you." She tells him the events of the past few months, starting with Peeta's black eye, and lets the story unravel from there. She tells him about the tesserae, what Peeta had to do to save her life, about Thread, and the deal she had to make with Haymitch Abernathy.

Gale's face darkens in anger.

"Nobody asked him to do it."

"Gale. All those tesserae we took. All those times our names will be in the Reaping bowl. It would have all been for nothing without him."

"We would have figured something out. That night- you didn't have to- If I had known what you-"

His eyes flash.

"I would have figured something out. I would have kept Rory from entering his name. Its not right that you're wrapped up in this because the baker forgot to pay attention in algebra. And it's not right, what he made you do."

"What does 'right' matter if we're all dead?"

He catches her arm and swings her around to face him.

"The rebellion- they knew too, about the tesserae. This isn't the first time the Capitol has done this, you know. They were working on a solution."

He tells her about what the rebels have been doing, how they've been organizing, but she doesn't want to hear it. All she can think of is how the Capitol will retaliate when they find out. If they had been willing to starve hundreds of people over a fire no one could prove wasn't accidental, what would they do when their mysterious rebel group becomes real people with names and families?

Her twisting stomach ties itself into a knot.

"You should join."

"Join what?"

"The rebellion."

"What will that do, Gale? Who will that help?"

"You, for starters."

"How? What is a rebellion  _really_  going to do?"

"It'll give us a chance. It'll give  _you_  a chance."

"A chance to what? Get killed?"

"A chance for anything!"

Gale is breathing heavily as he runs both of his hands through his hair and spins away from her.

"Don't you see what's happening?" he says, turning back to face her. "They're going to kill us! If things continue the way they are… it may not be today, or tomorrow, but if the Capital has their way, it'll be someday. The only thing we have left is to fight. It's the only way we'll  _ever_  have a chance."

Gale is right. If its not today, it will be someday. The Capitol will have them all, in the end. What choice did they really have? They could die on their knees, or on their feet. Either way they are just as dead.

But when she thinks about what it would mean- for Prim, for Gale's family, for Peeta- if Commander Thread found out she was a part of the rebellion, her blood runs cold. Though she knew that rebels in Twelve existed, they had been shadowy, anonymous. They had never been real. Not to her. Thinking about them now, as people who confronted this same decision, gives her the biggest reason of all not to join.

They're people.

And people are corruptible. People can be stupid. People can be scared.

Any one of them can be persuaded to out the rest.

To trust any of them would be like handing herself over to the Commander Thread herself.

Without having to ask, she knows that Gale is now a part of it. He knows too much, and even if he hasn't outright admitted it, he as good as told her he was a member the moment he invited her to join.

But she can't tell him what she thinks. Not about the rebellion, and not about his idiocy in becoming part of it, because Gale would never accept that rebellion was tantamount to suicide. So, instead, she deflects the only way she knows how.

"I need to talk to Peeta first."

She's horrible to do this to him. To leave him without an answer. Gale is like she is, slow to like, and even slower to trust. He would not have asked her without thinking long and hard about it first, for all their years of friendship. And using Peeta as a barrier isn't right either. It's a coward's move.

"Why?," Gale snaps, "He got you into this whole mess in the first place."

"No, he didn't," she says.

Gale snorts and shakes his head.

"Unbelievable."

"What?"

"Did you ever think that this might be what he wanted?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Did you ask him?"

She looks at him blankly.

"Why would I do that?"

"Do it. Ask him."

"That's ridiculous. I'm not going to- and anyway, why would he  _want_  to be forced to marry me?"

"You think I don't recognize the expression on his face when he looks at you?" Gale says as they break the edge of the forest. Ahead of them, the fence looms dark and stern.

"What are you talking about?"

Gale grabs her arm again, but she wrenches it out of his grasp and glares at him.

"Katniss," he says, stopping dead in his tracks. He stares at her in disbelief, his shoulders rising and his head turning slowly from side to side. "Are you completely blind? I'm  _in love_  with you. And so is he."

Oh.

And,  _Peeta is a fantastic actor._  She watches her breath rise and freeze in front of her face. It dissipates, and for a long minute, no more appears.

"But Madge-"

"-is a friend."

_Oh._

"Gale," she mumbles, the desperate edge of a plea in her voice. "You know how I feel. About that. And you."

His face tightens and he flushes, jerking back from her suddenly.

"And just what  _do_  you feel, exactly?"

"I don't- I can't. Not right now, not with things the way they are. Not after the drought. All I can think about is how afraid I am- for myself, for Prim, for you and Hazel, and the kids… there's nothing left of me that I can give. To anyone."

"And if things were different?" he says.

"I don't know."

" _How could you not know?!"_

"Because I don't!"

Its not good enough for him. He wants an answer, but there isn't one. At least not one he'll accept. She doesn't know because they don't live a world where she can afford to think along those lines. And even if she could, it would all go wrong, because she was never going to get married, and she was never going to have children and its better that he be disappointed in her now than further on down the road. Loving her was useless and the sooner he realized that, the better.

They continue on. He's silent as they slip past the fence and through the trees, down towards the path that will lead them back to the Seam. Before they part, Gale mutters angrily: "You let me know when you figure it out."

And then he's gone, and all she's left with are a few dead squirrels and the terrifying feeling that the world is spinning too quickly for her to catch up to it.

* * *

_It's not real_.

After every touch, every fleeting smile, she has to remind herself. What they're doing- this game that they're playing- someone will lose. And odds are it won't be the Capitol.

There's too much at stake for her to falter. Gale had told her about the rebellion and their growing weapons stockpile. With Commander Thread's control cinching tighter day by day, she doesn't need Greasy Sae to tell her that another disaster is imminent. If the Capitol finds out, there will be nothing left of them but ashes.

Panic slips in and out of her awareness like passing flows of ice. Peeta's hand is around her waist as he talks amiably with a group of peacekeepers on the last morning left in December. A new year and a new Reaping, are just around the corner. She smiles at him and leans her head against his shoulder. Giddy unreality rushes through her.

If the rebellion is discovered, she knows as surely as she lives that Thread will point his finger at them. He won't need proof. All he'll need are his previous suspicions.

Peeta's hand brushes over her head, smoothing down her hair, and she feels it again- that feeling of falling through the air, faster and faster, the ground rising up to catch her…

There's no picking apart the reasons that she showed up at the Bakery the morning he told her to stay away. The surety she had in her actions then has faded as she realizes what the future likely holds.

She will marry him to save herself and everyone she loves. In doing so, she will lose Gale, because Peeta has played this game so well that he even has Gale fooled. But none of this will matter if she and Peeta can't keep Thread off the trail of what they are doing in the bakery.

And if the Capital catches wind of the Rebellion, they're all dead anyway.

_Do you know, Peeta? How much danger we're in?_

One of the peacekeepers is talking to her. She asks Katniss about how she and Peeta fell in love. Katniss laughs breathily in response.

"Oh, I don't know, exactly. It was after the fire, I think, when I didn't know what had happened to him or where he was and I realized I didn't know what it would do to me, if he had died. The next time I saw him- it just happened."

Peeta gallantly picks up the mess of her words and sweeps them under a story more eloquent than any she could have hoped for.

"For me, it started the moment I saw her," he says. "It was our first day of school, she was wearing a red dress, and had her hair in two braids instead of just one. A teacher asked her to sing in assembly, and the moment I heard her voice... I just knew. She was it for me."

The group of peacekeepers smile at each other and Peeta tightens his hold on her waist. Customers throughout the bakery sigh.

Her knees weaken. Its perfect. They're all convinced. No one will ever know its not real. His arm is the only thing keeping her upright as their audience peppers them questions. Whether this is Thread's doing or because they are actually curious doesn't matter. Their answers would get back to him, one way or another.

They must be nothing but stupid with love.

But something in what Peeta had said strikes her as odd. That red dress he spoke about... she remembers it. And the song she had sung- it had been the valley song. She still knew all the words. She looks up at his face as he answers another question. You would never have known that the boy standing next to her had been nearly dead on his feet just three months ago. He's beautiful now- alive, whole, and for the moment,  _safe_.

And then it strikes her that part of what she had said had been true too. Shock shudders through her like she's jumped head first into a freezing lake.

_I didn't know what it would do to me, if he had died._

She had thought that. That was true. After the fire, when she was all but sure Peeta was gone, she had thought those words.

The room spins around and around. She tucks her head against his chest and wonders when the line between real and not real became this blurred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Oh my god I'm so tired. This chapter was a doozy, huh? Huge thanks to my tireless, wonderful beta Opaque! She's did a fantastic job with this chapter!
> 
> And to everyone who reviewed last chapter, and everyone here just to hang out, thanks so much for reading!
> 
> See you next week!


	10. Spirit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At first, it doesn't make sense. And then, she realizes. This is real. This is not a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: implied violence, gore, recreational alcohol consumption, death of a major character.

_**x.** _

* * *

It happens in early January. Greasy Sae is dead.

The words sit like curdled milk on her tongue, sour and heavy, and she needs to repeat them just to understand what they mean. Its seems impossible that Sae could have succumbed to anything other than a sonorous nap after a good helping of white liquor, and she finds herself drifting back to the Hob in numb shock.

There's nothing there now to suggest that it had once been a bustling market. She's been busy, hasn't been by in while, so she hasn't noticed until now that the rickety wooden structures that once made the booths and counters of the market have been smashed to jagged pieces and left out to alternate between freeze and rot.

Undoubtedly it had been left this way as a reminder.

_Theres nothing you do that we can't see. Theres nothing so precious we won't take it from you._

They don't need to remind her. She knows.

Katniss wanders back. The funeral is today, and she's not dressed for it yet. Something about finally donning the clothes for Sae's funeral makes her death seem all the more permanent, as though the ritual of dressing was a decision to accept the unacceptable.

Prim is frustrated when she gets home, sitting at the kitchen table with breakfast already set out.

"You said you'd only be gone for a minute. I thought you were going into the backyard or something."

"Sorry duck."

Prim huffs and kicks Katniss' chair out with her foot.

"Sit down and eat. You're going to have to drink your tea cold now."

"I'll just heat up more water.

"Katniss," Prim whines, stretching out her name in a nasal tone. "I used orange peel in it. Don't waste it, we only have a little bit of peel left."

"Ok ," she says, flopping down in the chair, "But Prim, don't use the peel for tea next time. I don't need it and we probably won't see more oranges for a few months yet."

Prim fiddles with the crusts of her toast on her plate, piling cheese on them with a frown. Prim hates crust.

"I just wanted a nice breakfast with you. You're always so busy."

There's a sharp ache in her chest that makes swallowing the mouthful of toast she just bit off a little more difficult than she expects. She coughs and drinks down half of her tea.

"Its better cold. I can taste more of the orange."

Prim rolls her eyes, but can't hide her smile as she pops another piece of what's arguably more cheese than bread in her mouth and chews. Holding a self conscious hand over her mouth, she chastises Katniss through her food.

"Youre lying, but that's OK, because  _I_  know I make the best tea blends, even if you're too busy with your fake fiance to appreciate it."

"Prim!" she hisses, and slaps the table with her palm.

Prim stands up to clear the table mid-eyeroll.

"Calm down. It's just us here."

Telling Prim that the engagement was fake had been such a bad idea, but she had been beside herself when she heard, afraid Katniss would leave her. Where Prim had gotten the idea that she would ever do something like is beyond her... That is, until, she remembers her mother had abandoned Prim over and over and worse still, during a disaster that had almost claimed Katniss' life as well.

The worst part was she hadn't heard from Katniss herself. It had been Gale who told her when she was visiting the Hawthorne's. When no one contradicted what Gale said, Prim was devastated, assuming the worst of why Katniss hadn't told her, and wondering what would happen to her now that she would be all on her own.

When Katniss came home to find a sobbing Prim, she did the only thing she could think to do, which of course was revealing that the engagement was fake. That also meant she had to repeat the story of why it was necessary in the first place- skipping over certain details. Like the true nature of the tesserae.

Prim hadn't shut up about it since.

"Just stop talking about it," she snaps.

Elbow deep in breakfast dishes, Prim sighs.

"I will when you will."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Katniss you talk about him constantly."

"He's my boss. We work together. We spend a lot of time-"

"No one, and I mean no one, can ever be your boss in any sense of that word. I bet you've railroaded your way into bossing him around by now."

"I-"

Dammit. Prim was right.

Peeta was useless when they had a line of customers. He was slow to finish even the simplest tasks, and preferred to talk to each customer rather than get them in and out of the shop as quickly as possible. It was incredibly irritating. So yes, there'd been more than one occasion when she's snapped at him.

Prim smirks at her over her shoulder.

"Thought so."

Theres no way she'll win this one.

"I need to get dressed."

Katniss stomps out of the kitchen and rummages through her mother's drawers until she finds an appropriate black dress, tugging it over her head. Prim wanders back too and watches her as her hands flit through the motions of rebraiding her hair.

"Where are you off to?," she asks.

"Funeral."

"Oh my god," breathes Prim, "Who died? How come you never said anything about someone dying?"

"She was someone I knew from the Hob."

Katniss skirts around answering the trickier parts of Prim's questions, but feels all the worse for it. Sae deserved to be remembered for something more than just what she did to survive. They all did.

"She was-"

But she can't find words that are good enough to explain why or how Sae was important outside of being the perpetually the most senior member of Twelve. How could she explain to Prim that Sae had been one of the only constants in her life, year after year?

Katniss wonders how she would be remembered when she died. The surly wife of a baker who sold liquor from the backdoor?

A chill washes over her as she ties off her braid.

"I'll be back this afternoon," she says, and sets off for Sae's shack on the southern edge of the Seam.

Along the way, she stops to buy a single lump of coal. Its a tradition in Twelve to bring coal to a funeral. There are no graves yards in Twelve, besides the few very ancient ones from long before Panem, and recently even those are disappearing as the Capitol cleared even more land. Bodies in Twelve were burned nearly as soon as they hit the dirt. Funerals were usually held in the family's home, but only Merchant families could afford to have flowers and food.

Most Seam families were too poor to take time off from work, even if it was their family member who had died. That didn't mean that deaths went unmourned- the family of the deceased just swung their front door open and let their neighbors stop by to pay their respects as they could. At some point, it became tradition to bring a lump of coal to a funeral. The coal brought to the family was meant to provide for the family where the deceased no longer could, and to stand in place of the grave the deceased would never have.

At least until it was burned in winter.

Katniss knows she's stalling when she starts to get picky about the size of the lump of coal as she digs through the pile at the distribution center. A cramped house of teary-eyed mourners awaits her and with every passing moment she dreads it more.

Nonetheless, that's where she finds herself not even twenty minutes later, surrounded by quiet sniffles and the musky scent of wet wool and stale sweat. Her lump of coal joins a mound of others on the kitchen table, and she means to duck out as soon as she can make it through the crush of people packed into the tiny house, but Ripper, who's standing on the gently lopsided porch, grabs her before she can get away.

"Never thought I'd see the day. It's a damn shame," she croaks around her pipe, smoke seeping from between her clenched teeth.

Suddenly unable to trust her voice not to crack, Katniss nods in response and crosses her arms over her chest. Ripper's pipe clatters from one side of her mouth to the other as she leans her back against the house and sighs. In a bathrobe and a man's patched trenchcoat, with her face swollen and red, the normally unflappable woman seems much more vulnerable.

"She was a fan of yours, you know," she continues, watching the constant stream of mourners enter and exit the house, "I think you got your reputation from that woman alone."

What was Ripper talking about? What reputation?

She must look confused, because Ripper shakes her head.

"You got a lot of spirit, girl. Sae liked that."

Her beaten up boots and greying, patched tights swim in her vision as she trains her eyes downward.  _Sae thought she had spirit._ What did that even mean?

Whatever it meant, it couldn't be entirely bad. It implied that Sae had thought she was a fighter, which meant other people did too. It was strange to think that was how people saw her, when all she was able to see in herself was desperation. A desperation to live. A desperation that Prim live too. Could she really be that much of a fighter if all she was willing to fight for were the lives of a very few people?

By that logic, Peeta had at least ten times the spirit she had, even if he wouldn't fight to save himself.

In a quiet sort of way, he did, she decides. There is an intensity in him she sees only fleetingly, when he frosts a cake, or works on a page in one of his many handmade sketchbooks. She has never seen the inside of these books, but there isn't a moment when Peeta thinks he is alone that he doesn't have his nose buried in one. She is both curious and terrified of what she will find should she ever have the chance to see what was inside of them.

Ripper claps a sudden hand down on her shoulder, startling her.

"This is no place for young people. Get out of here. Go on and cause some trouble somewhere."

There is nothing she wants to do less than cause trouble. A long walk is what she needs, maybe a cup of tea.

"Oh shoot. Almost forgot. She left something for you…" Ripper digs around her coat pocket and withdraws and piece of paper folded into a square. On the front, in crude, shaking handwriting, is her name.

Tonight is not the night to read letters from the dead. She tucks it into her coat pocket.

"Go on now. Git," Ripper says, shooing her away with her hands. "And don't you do nothing but fix yourself something stiff to drink and go find that boy of yours. He'll know what to do with you."

Sick with sudden fury, Katniss storms off the porch to Ripper's raucous laughter, which follows her until she turns off Sae's street. How Peeta can stand that woman is a total mystery. Katniss is sure she's never hated anyone more.

Without meaning to, her feet lead her to the back door of the bakery. As much as she wants to walk to clear her head, its cold and her need to be somewhere warm and familiar overrides everything else. Realizing suddenly that she followed Ripper's advice to find Peeta, she grinds her teeth and is about to stalk away when the back door swings open. Just her luck.

"Hey," Peeta says in surprise, running a hand through his sweaty curls. "What are you doing here?"

It infuriates her further to find that Ripper had been right about finding Peeta. It was exactly the right thing to do.

"I was on a walk and ended up here."

"Are you ok?"

"Little cold."

He moves to usher her inside, but she catches a glimpse of Delly and Thistle in the kitchen with a few tiny pots of multi-colored dyes spread out on the table.

"Never mind. I should go."

"Wait, Katniss- are you sure you're ok?"

"I'm fine."

"Should I… Do you want me to come by later?"

"Yes," she blurts before she can stop herself. And then, because the thought of being alone is unbearable, adds, "Don't keep me waiting."

She spins on her heel and strides away quickly, not looking back.

When she gets home, Prim is gone. There is a note on the table explaining that she is with Rory, and will be home soon. Silent and empty, her house feels as though it is shrinking all around her. Too small. Too stuffy. Too dark. She swings open the back door, where the still, which Peeta has painted into the shadows, sits dormant and cold. Arms wrapped around herself, she steps into the frigid afternoon air on her back porch.

This is no place to live an entire life, she decides. In the same house. The same District. Never knowing anything but this. Greasy Sae had spent her whole life here. She had never known anything else. Would she live her life like that? She longs for the woods for just a moment, but the woods mean Gale, and she is not ready to touch that. Not now.

The woods obviously can no longer be her sanctuary.

Its all too much. She can't breathe. She needs air. Needs to be anywhere but here. She needs to be  _up._

The roof. It is colder up here, but the view of the roofs of the other houses in the Seam, rising up to break the skyline, fill her with a sense of ease. Here there is space to breathe. On her way to the roof, she had snagged a bottle of her own rotgut, which she had yet to try. Ripper had already been right once today, who said lightning couldn't strike twice?

The woman was hateful, but she had seen her fair share of death. Maybe her comment had been less off-handed than she had thought.

Unscrewing the lid on the mason jar, she downs her first gulp with a heaving gag. The liquid snakes a fiery trail down her mouth and throat, before burning in her stomach.  _She likes it._

The wait for Peeta takes longer than she thought it would, but eventually he turns down her street, looking rushed and worried.

She stays silent. Watches him as he approaches her house. Clean, pale and wide-eyed, its obvious even from a distance that he isn't Seam. Merchants normally don't venture to the other side of Twelve, and if they do, it was only during the day. Peeta's anxious countenance and observant gaze would be dead giveaways, even if his pale skin and hair weren't.

They had a saying for that: "Open eyes catch flies."

Tonight, thinking that while watching him is unbearable.

That secret world inside of him, the one she can only catch passing glimpses of- was that one more real to him than this one? What did he see, when he looked around this place? She saw hungry children. She saw the Reaping. She saw missing fathers and dead mothers.

As he goes to mount the stairs to get to her front door she stops him by swinging her legs. The movement catches his eye, and he finally looks up.

"Hey," he says, looking up and squinting. "What are you doing all the way up there?"

She shrugs.

"What are you doing all the way down there?"

He smiles slightly.

" _Haha_. Funny. OK, really. Come down."

Her grin broadens.

"Why don't you come up?"

He tries to, but he's just not as nimble as she is. It takes him a few minutes to hoist himself up the tree, and then another few to shimmy his way across the branch. Everytime she thinks he's going to give up and beg her to come down instead, he surprises her by gritting his teeth and doubling his effort.

When he finally plops down next to her he glares.

"OK. What are we doing?"

"Causing trouble."

He drops his head into his hands. When he looks up she's drinking from the wide mouth of a mason jar.

"Jesus Christ, Katniss! There's ice everywhere up here! You're going to fall off!"

She raises both her eyebrows pointedly.

"Nope. No. Were getting down. Now. Good job, you have had what I am sure is  _the_  worst idea of all time."

He goes to stand and she grabs his sleeve and yanks him back down.

"I'll be fine," she mutter, "I'm not going to fall off."

"You don't know that. This isn't safe."

"Its fine. Sit down."

He groans in frustration and sits down next to her.

"If you fall, I'm not going to be the one to tell Prim the reason why her sister is a pancake."

In response, she offers a him a drink from the jar, which he turns down immediately.

"At least one of us to be sober," he grumbles as she takes another long drink from the jar. "Want to tell me the real reason you're up here?"

She pauses, squinting out across the jagged roofline of the Seam.

"See that house out there?," she says, pointing toward one that rose above all the rest. "That's Ripper's house."

He follows her finger along the jumble of houses until he spies it- the only two story house in the Seam.

She then points just slightly to the left of that house.

"And that," she says, "is where I was today."

She silent for a moment before she continues.

"I went to a funeral."

"A funeral for who?"

"A woman named Greasy Sae. You would have liked her, I think."

"Who was she?"

_Good question._

"A vendor at the Hob. The oldest living person in Twelve. And apparently, a fan of mine."

"Its hard not to be. A fan of yours, I mean."

She snorts and takes another long drink from the jar. The spirit burns in her nose and throat as it slides down, then spreads a cozy heat through her limbs.

"Tell me our story," she says.

"What story?"

"How we met. The first time we kissed. How you asked me to marry you."

Peeta is quiet for a minute, fixing an oddly thoughtful stare at his shoes.

"Why don't you tell me, Katniss? How would it have happened?"

"I'm no good at this. But you are, and-" she clears her throat, which has suddenly gone dry. "-and we really should iron out these details."

Shes sleepy and warm, and suddenly wants nothing more than to close her eyes. Lying back against the roof, her gaze drifts across the darkening sky. In all of those books of his, had he ever imagined this? Had he ever tried to keep track of their lies? There had been so many- it was dizzying to try to keep up with them all.

So what were a few more? She wants to know- she has to know- what story had he imagined?

"It started at school. I'd watch you sometimes. I was curious. Maybe- maybe it was a little bit of a crush."

Her arms raise over her head and she tucks her face against the one closest to him.

"And then, the fire. We both lost so much, and I couldn't even dream of getting to see you again, much less talk to you. And I really did want to, but I was terrified at the same time. I had built you up so much that you just became utterly unreachable. I gave up and settled for just watching you, because I still had to know you."

The cocoon of warmth between her face and the smooth leather of her jacket becomes her world. This warmth, Peeta's words, and the sky, big and open and just out of reach. If only there was a way climb there. If only there was a way out of the fences that surrounded Twelve that wouldn't lead to death or torture. Perhaps Peeta had found the only way, inside of himself.

"And just when I had given up entirely on ever seeing you again, you showed up at the bakery just as I was closing up. I stayed open for you, so you could buy bread, and I was dying to say something, anything to keep you there…"

Its all there in her mind, just as he describes. It was more than maybe. It really could have been this way. There is a leaden lump in her throat that makes it hard to swallow.

"I told you how I felt that night, even though I was scared. And I told you not to worry. That I would take care of you, if you allowed it."

"And what did I do?" she croaks. "What did I say?"

Peeta lies down next to her, and when she sneaks a look at him over her jacket, those blue eyes are trained on her, only her. This world he's built, where she buys bread instead of stealing it, where she is unreachable but desired- she could disappear into it.

"I don't know, Katniss. What did you say?"

Closing her eyes again, she lives that night the way Peeta describes. She sees herself in the bakery as he confesses, and immediately she knows what she does next. But saying it would ruin the world that Peeta has so carefully crafted. This is a world where he loves her, so could it be a world where she could let herself love him?

No, she decides. In no world real or imagined could she ever see herself as capable of that.

"I say:  _I don't need anyone to survive._ "

Peeta laughs.

"And that's how it starts," he says.

" _That's_  how?" she asks incredulously.

"Yes. A story's never any good without conflict."

"So you... what? You convince me that I need you?"

"No," he laughs. "I convince you that we need each other."

Peeta words jumble together until its not his voice she's hearing, just the story he paints. There are walks together through the snow. They play cards. He cooks for her. Their first kiss is at sunset, in the garden in the back of the bakery. There are fights. Gifts. Small things.  _Real things._  Whether its the alcohol in her veins or the soft drone of his voice she can't be sure, but at some point she drifts off. The fantasy isn't over though. Her mind, or Peeta's words, keep supplying the images.

Nights during the winter where they watch the snow fall out of the window in the apartment on top of the bakery, talking about nothing for hours. He teaches her to bake, which she is predictably short-tempered with. She nurses him back to health after a nasty cold. There is no hunger here in Peeta's fictional winter, no Capitol posters, no tesserae and no peacekeepers. This world is real, but softer. Gentler.

She is bobbing gently in the dark waters between sleeping and not when she feels herself being lifted and carried. Her head lolls against something warm, and she burrows her face into it. There is movement around her. Panicked whispers. A long series of wooden creaks. Peeta's rushed voice rumbling against her-  _Is this the ladder you brought him on? How is he?_

He carries her somewhere warm, and a crowd of voices is waiting for them. Peeta sits her down on the couch and someone screams, feet pound on the stairs, and the light prickles and bleeds into balls of long spines all around her.

Someone is asking where Gale is, and ordering that water be boiled and fresh rags be brought out.

Why are so many people here? Something is telling her that its late. They were breaking curfew. Risking arrest. Or worse.

Delly is screaming over and over that Peeta lied to her, that he  _knew what was happening in the square_ , and Prim is sobbing airlessly.  _Something is wrong._  She stands up and the room spins violently. Why is Haymitch here? She takes a step forward and is overwhelmed by a heavy, cloying scent. Nausea washes through her.

"Oh for fuck's sake- Is she drunk?!" Haymitch snaps.

At first, it doesn't make sense. And then, she realizes. This is real. This is not a dream.

That smell. It's blood.

Peeta notices that she is standing and moves toward her.

"Katniss, wait. You shouldn't-"

She shrugs him off and walks further into the kitchen. Prim is the first person her eyes find. Her face is pale, her eyes wide and glassy, and she is shaking violently while she grips a dark-stained rag in a tight fist over her left eye.

"Prim!," she cries, and rushes forward. As she does, her eyes catch on a dark figure laid on his stomach on the kitchen table. She's not sure what she's looking at until she right in front of it. It's boy's back, only barely recognizable as such. It's mutilated, the skin torn open in long trails, oozing blood over his sides on onto the table below.

"Who?" she croaks dizzily.

"Rory," Prim sobs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Huge thanks to my beta Opaque for another 24 hour turn around!
> 
> To my readers and reviewers, you guys are fantastic! See you next week!


	11. Prim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As she peers around the willow, green glimmers speckle the darkness, and through the near silent night air, she hears a sound that freezes her blood.
> 
> Soft Panting.
> 
> "Peeta," she breathes. "Run."

_**xi**_.

* * *

The wound Prim is hiding underneath the rag is worse than she could have imagined. A gash extends from over her eyebrow and down her cheek, dark against her pale skin and already drying over in a black crust.

There's no doubt in her mind that it will scar. She's seen wounds like this before- even bore a few herself from the snap of her bowstring. It would heal bright pink after scabbing over, then fade to a sensitized white stripe. Objectively, she knows the wound will heal. She even knows that all things considered, Prim got off easy. It's a small mercy her eye has been spared.

All the same, she can't fight the horror she feels as she realizes Prim's beautiful face will be scarred forever after this.

And she can't help but feel she has failed. To protect Prim. To protect Rory. She has given everything to keep them safe and has failed them so utterly. Driven by instinct, Katniss reaches for her sister, engulfing her in shaking arms while hiding the quiver in her chin behind Prim's head. A moment's allowance is what she gives herself. To close her eyes. To grit her teeth. To hold Prim as tightly as she dares.

It isn't enough. When it comes to Prim, nothing will ever be enough. Her head snaps up.

"What happened?" she snarls, and Delly, standing by the stove with her arms full of clean rags, flinches. "What  _happened_  to them?!"

Haymitch clears his throat and leans back in his chair.

"Boy got himself whipped. Blondie got in the way."

"Why?! What did they do?!"

Haymitch's eyes flicker to Prim.

"Got caught trying to trade a squirrel."

She must still be a little drunk, because she almost laughs. A squirrel. A squirrel was worth this? The cruelty is absurd. Rory isn't moving. He's not making any sound at all and except for his quick shallow breaths, you wouldn't know he was alive. How could a single, stupid squirrel be worth this? Pound for pound, it doesn't make sense. The lashes on his back are deep and many- she didn't dare count them. It was enough to imagine how many there were without knowing the true number.

She had failed him. Each stripe on his back was her fault. She might as well have put them there herself.

"Katniss," says Prim quietly. "I have to go help Rory now."

This is something else she knows objectively. That Prim is the only person who can save him. Still, there's nothing she can do about the tremble in her lip and she nods as if she understands what Prim has said, but she hasn't. Not one word.

Because though the years have passed and they have all become taller and faster and smarter, Prim and Rory are still just kids, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for her to understand how they have all grown up so quickly.

Prim pulls away and takes command of the room in one swift movement. Its as though someone has hit a switch and her silly, sweet younger sister is someone else entirely.

It reminds Katniss of her mother.

As she watches Prim, its like all the strength drains out of her. Her stomach flips and she feels the familiar burn of bile rising in her throat. Stumbling out onto the back porch, she barely manages to hang herself over the railing before she's throwing up.

The back door slams shut and footsteps behind her let her know she's not alone.

"You'll feel better when its all out, sweetheart."

Better was definitely relative. There had never been a time she had felt worse and as the vomit rushes up her throat and out her nose and mouth, she concludes that those who drink and enjoy white liquor also enjoy misery.

It would certainly explain a lot about Haymitch. Even as she spills her guts into the gray, snowy slush off her back porch he's sipping from his flask, his nose wrinkled in disgust.

"You picked a hell of a time to get wasted."

"Please shut up," she groans, and spits out a mouthful of saliva and bile. It dribbles into a puddle that sits on top of the snow.

Haymitch chuckles. The back door swings open again and to her embarrassment, she hears Peeta's voice.

"How is she do- Nevermind."

He comes to stand behind her and pulls her braid back over her shoulder. It had been dangling precariously in her face.

She wants to shrug him off, but when his other hand comes to rest soothingly on her back, it feels so impossibly good that she lets it stay. Through her nausea and pounding head, she can sense his worry is honest. Afterall, there's no reason to pretend in front of Haymitch. And she's too weak to turn down any small comfort tonight.

"She needs water. And bread," Haymitch grumbles. "Go make yourself useful kid. She can hold her own braid back."

"No," she rasps. "Don't you dare put any of that shit in my face."

"He's right, Katniss. I'll be right back."

She groans as Peeta pulls away and can't decide if its in aggravation at Haymitch or because she doesn't want to face the loss of his hands.

As soon as he's gone, Haymitch is beside her.

"She's real special, that sister of yours. You know that?"

Katniss straightens and leans her head against the roof post, her gaze rolling over to Haymitch's lined, sallow face.

His eyes are dancing between hers, as if he could read her thoughts in her eyes alone.

"She jumped in front of the whip. For that boy. But you should know, it weren't his own bag he was carrying. And there weren't no squirrel in it neither."

There's no time for her to respond or analyze what Haymitch has revealed to her, because Peeta is back. He helps her inside and sits her on the couch, where she nibbles at the bread in between waves of nausea. There is a flurry of activity in the kitchen. Prim has Rory covered in snow coat already. With Delly and Thistle rushing around under her orders, the kitchen has been converted to a makeshift clinic. More water has been set to boil- they must have already attempted to clean his wounds as much as the swelling would allow. Delly is wringing out rags in the sink, and Thistle is busy disinfecting sewing needles as she pulls them out of a plastic package and laying them out on a fresh, white rag.

Katniss' head swims. Rory would need stitches- a lot of them.

As if Thistle can feel her gaze, she twists her head around to look at her and gives her a faint, reassuring twist of her lips. For the first time, there is no humor in her smile.

"Prim's got this under control. I'm just cleaning the needles for... later."

On the table, Rory stirs. His fingers twitch and his face twists in pain.

Prim is at his side in an instant, clutching his hand as he comes to with a weak whimper that quickly devolves into a guttural moan. Katniss tries to launch herself off the couch but Peeta catches her by the shoulders.

"You have to stay out of the way," he says. "They've got this. You're not going to be any help in the state you're in."

As Rory starts to sob, tremors shake Katniss.

"Rory, you have to listen to me," Prim says calmly. "I know it hurts. I know it does. But you're going to be fine. Ok? I'm here. Katniss is here. Delly and Thistle are going to help. We're going to take good care of you."

"Gale," he pleads, "Where is Gale?"

Katniss looks around in panic. Where  _is_  Gale?

Delly and Thistle exchange uncomfortable looks.

"He's on his way, Rory, ok? He'll be here soon," says Prim, but Katniss can tell she's lying.

Obviously, they had brought Rory here and were unable to locate his older brother. There was only one reason for that- Gale hadn't told anyone where he'd be. It was unlike Gale to be that irresponsible and Katniss understood instinctively that that meant he didn't want anyone to know.

"We have to get him to calm down," Prim says in a low voice to Delly. "He needs to go back to sleep."

There's little chance of that. Rory is beyond words as he sobs brokenly on the table, and its all Katniss can do not to shove Peeta away and drag Gale here by his hair. But there is a curfew, and Katniss getting herself whipped as well won't do any good either.

Prim grabs Rory hands and clutches it between hers, sinking into a chair next to him.

"Rory- you have to listen to me. I know you're in pain. We're going to switch your snowcoat and give you sleep syrup in just a few minutes, and then you can rest, but you have to stick with me until then… Deep breaths, Rory, you're going to be ok."

Thistle and Delly scramble out the back door to get to clean snow from the yard, while Prim gets up and retrieves a dark bottle of the syrup.

"C'mon. Let's get you to bed."

Peeta tries to pull her to her feet, but her legs are too leaden for her to stand.

"No. I want to stay here."

"Alright," he says tiredly and sinks down next to her on the couch. Her leg is bouncing. When had it started doing that?

"Did Haymitch tell you that after Prim got hit, there was a riot? Delly and Thistle just barely managed to get them out before the peacekeepers showed up," he whispers. If he meant to distract her from Rory, it worked.

"What?" she breathes, "Why?"

"Think about it. People are angry and desperate; they have been for a long time. Nothing's getting better. They're ready to rally behind anything- especially protecting people like Prim and Rory."

"It doesn't make any sense," she says weakly. "Are they out of their minds? Don't they know what the Capitol will do when they find out?"

Peeta's blue eyes lock onto hers and there is hardness to them she has never seen before.

"I think they might be past caring. And maybe," his eyes flicker to Rory, still shivering on the table. "… maybe its not a bad thing."

She can't answer. There are no words left to describe the horror she feels. The Capitol would not leave a riot unpunished. And whatever punishment they did send would be terrible. If they were already willing to maim and starve children, what else were they capable of doing?

Peeta's hands encircle hers, and she realizes with an odd sense of detachment that she hasn't stopped shaking yet.

"Hey. You need to rest," he says softly to her. "You can't do anything about it tonight. There'll be plenty of time to worry tomorrow."

Katniss nods, but can't tear her eyes away from her hands in his. They're small and littered with pink scars and in his much broader, pale hands she can't help but notice how slender and dark her own seem. Of their own volition, her eyes stray from their hands and trail up his arms, notched with the thick trails of his own scars.

A shiver rattles through her.

"I'm cold," she murmurs. Peeta's hands withdraw from hers, which are soon after covered by the ratty quilt that had been hanging over the back of the couch. He tucks it around her shoulders and sits back down.

"Katniss," he says, "You need to sleep."

"Rory-"

"-is in capable hands. I'll be awake. It's ok."

Her teeth chatter as she lifts her eyes from her lap to watch as Prim, Thistle and Delly together spread the snowcoat on Rory's back. He whimpers in relief and his eyes drift mercifully shut.

"He's right," Prim announces as she plops back down next to Rory, a rag of snowcoat pressed to her own cut and she once again entwines her hand with Rory's. "You need to sleep. You can't stay awake. Its not... good for you."

Her eyes flash meaningfully at Katniss.

"Right," Katniss mumbles as she tilts her head back. "Not good."

Why can't she stop shivering?

Against her will, her eyes slide shut.

* * *

For the second time that night, she is awake before she's aware. Prim is whispering to her in a panic, and she can't understand what she's saying.

"Wait," she says, "What's happening?"

"Rory has a fever, Katniss. And we're out of willowbark."

At some point, she had curled herself into Peeta's side. His arm is around her and her head is against his chest. The rapid thud of his heart fills the ear she has pressed to him. Why is it beating so fast?

Katniss sits up suddenly.

"Are you sure?"

Prim nods grimly as tears fill her eyes.

"What should we do Katniss?" she pleads.

"How bad is it? How long can we wait?"

"I don't know!" Prim whispers in a panic. "Mom never let it this kind of thing happen so I don't know what I should do! A fever means his body is fighting, but if it gets too bad he-"

She chews anxiously on the inside of her cheek, staring at Rory's prone figure on the table.

"The snow might bring it down, but its only going to do so much."

She looks over at Peeta's face and is unsurprised to find that he has kept his promise to stay awake. He is watching the exchange between them with a furrowed brow. As if he can see her very thoughts, his eyes widen and his face pales.

"Ok," she says, "I'll have to get more."

"You can't!" Prim cries, and claps a hand over her mouth as Rory whimpers.

"We don't have another choice."

"Can we wait for dawn?" Peeta whispers. "Isn't it just a tree by the fence?"

Katniss squirms uncomfortably as Prim shakes her head.

"No," Prim says. "Willow trees only grow by bodies of water."

Prim's eyes flicker to Katniss.

"But there's no lakes or rivers in-  _oh_.It's not within the fence, is it?"

"No," Katniss admits. "Its not. I have to go now. If Prim is right, there's no time to lose."

"Katniss you can't. What if you-," Prim starts, but Katniss cuts her off.

"Prim!," she snaps. "I'm the only one who can go. Rory needs this. Its not up for discussion."

Katniss stands and tugs out the leather cord restraining her braid. Her hair falls around her shoulders in waves and she swiftly rebraids it as she strides toward the front door.

"Please Katniss," Prim pleads. "Take someone with you. You can't go alone."

"There's no one else who can go with me."

Prim whirls on Peeta.

"You can't let her go alone," she says. "Katniss is sick. Don't let her-"

"Primrose!" Katniss barks. "Do  _not_  say another word, do you hear me?"

Prim continues as if Katniss hadn't spoken at all.

"-go alone. You don't know what she's been through- what we've done to keep her from getting worse- Peeta, don't let her waste-"

"Of course I'll go with her. There's no way I'd let her go alone."

"Prim for god sakes-"

"Katniss," Peeta says evenly, "you're wasting time by arguing."

He's right- every moment they spend arguing is another moment Rory could be getting worse. As her jaw works furiously, she spins away from Peeta and Prim and grabs her boots from the front door. Jamming them on and tugging the laces tight, she snaps at Peeta to do the same. He may be right, but that didn't mean she is happy about having to drag him out to the woods,  _at night_ , when he had never even so much as been outside the fence.

She yanks her bow out of from its new hiding place under the couch and puts it into her pack as Peeta laces his boots. This is madness. Going to the woods in the pitch black of night is a bad enough idea- doing it with someone who doesn't even have a weapon is basically guaranteed trouble. She groans and runs a hand over her face in frustration.

"Peeta. You need to listen to me. When we get out there, do everything I say, when I say it. Don't ask any questions, don't hesitate. Just do what I say. Got it?"

Peeta nods as he stands and smooths down his pants nervously.

"Got it."

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the lighter and the knife. She flicks the lighter on experimentally, just to see if it still worked. As the flame bursts into life, she is suddenly grateful for Darius' gift. It is one of the most useful things she has ever been given. She would have to remember to thank him somehow.

"Ok. Let's go."

Prim is pale and shaking with exhaustion as she begs them to hurry, but she needn't have said anything at all. Katniss wouldn't let Rory down. Not again.

She and Peeta sneak out from the back door and race through the backyards of the dark houses in the Seam. It's late enough that most people are asleep, and those that are awake are engaged in the kind of other activities where they certainly aren't likely to be looking out the windows. In the backstreets and empty yards, she and Peeta stand little chance of running into peacekeepers, but they still need to be cautious.

Unfortunately, Peeta didn't seem to fully grasp the meaning of the word. Her eyes roll heavenward as he snaps another twig and mumbles a quick apology.

"Shh, Peeta," she hisses. "Don't apologize, just be more quiet."

The streetlamps give them minimal light as they dodge obstacles like clotheslines and startled goats, but as they reach the outer edge of the District, the lights peter out until, at the very border between last of the houses and the woods in front of the fence, they end entirely. Peeta isn't as fast as she is, and it only gets worse as it gets darker.

"Come  _on_ ," she says. "You're slowing us down."

"I'm sorry, I can't see anything. I can't even see you."

Her hand shoots out and grabs his shoulder.

"I'm right here. How can you not see? There's plenty of moonlight."

Even as she says it, she has to admit that even with the moonlight, it was too dark to make out much. Using the lighter is tempting, but they couldn't do that until they were at least in the forest. Any light, even just a flicker, could draw a peacekeeper.

Peeta grabs her hand and entwines his fingers with hers. Shocked, she tries to tug her hand back, but Peeta holds on.

"Please? I don't want to lose you," he says.

Heart in her throat, she nods before she remembers that he can't see her.

"Ok. Fine."

They separate for only a moment so they can fit through the fence, which is blessedly off. What they would have done if the fence was on she doesn't even want to contemplate. The woods are nearly pitch black, with only the faintest filtering of moonlight outlining the trunks of trees in silvery light. Because of this, they have to move slowly, and Katniss only dares flick the lighter a few times out of fear that even as they trudge deeper into the woods, they are still in danger of being caught.

The going is hard. Snow that has been collecting since November has now piled up to their shins, meaning they have to use twice the energy just to walk. Breathing heavily, she tightens her hand in Peeta's.

"We have to move faster," she urges, even as she knows there is no way they could possibly do that.

"I know," is all Peeta says, exhaustion lining his voice.

It takes them nearly an hour to finally break through the trees to the clearing with the lake. By the time she flicks her blade open in the dancing glow from the lighter and begins to scrape the bark from the willow tree, her lungs are burning from the coldness in the air and Peeta looks dead on his feet. But there is no time to rest. Their journey is only halfway finished and Rory's fever could already be getting worse. Despite her fear, her hands tremble in exhaustion and her eyes feel hot and gritty. The rhythmic flash of the blade in the firelight is hypnotic, and exhaustion hits her in heavy waves.

At first, she dismisses the green flash in the darkness beyond the skeletal, low hanging branches of the willow as a trick of the light glancing off her blade. Then, to her right, another gleam of bright green. The blade stills as she squints out into the darkness, cold fear flooding her veins.

As she peers around the willow, green glimmers speckle the darkness, and through the near silent night air, she hears a sound that freezes her blood.

_Soft Panting._

"Peeta," she breathes. "Run."

"What? Why-"

"Now Peeta!"

She bolts for the woods, leaping through the snow as her heart hammers against her ribs. There are ten of them, maybe more, yipping and baying as they bound behind them. The treeline looms dark in front of her, promising safety and cover- if they could only reach it in time.

With a pack of wild dogs, there is only one way to survive, and it is in the branches of a tree.

The heavy thud of one body hitting another one startles her, and she whips her head over her shoulder just in time to see two dogs leaping onto Peeta as he slams into the ground.

As one of the dogs latches onto his leg and thrashes his head from side to side, she screams his name and turns back. She tears her bow out of her bag, fumbling to notch an arrow before firing a volley in quick succession through the frigid night air and into the thick pelts of the dogs. When the arrows bury into their sides, they flinch and yelp, releasing their hold on Peeta and loping quick back toward the other members of the pack who circle them anxiously. As the injured two retreat, a third dog dares to bound toward Peeta and is rewarded with an arrow through its skull.

Dark splashes of blood litters the ground as the pack circles them, and Katniss loads another arrows with numb, trembling fingers. The notched arrow threatens whichever dog is brave enough to step forward, but she knows its only a matter of time before they attack as a group.

"Peeta," she gasps. "My pocket. Take the knife."

He edges closer to her and when he reaches across the space that separates them, his sudden movement triggers the dogs to leap forward en masse.

Then they're running again, lungs and cheeks burning in the frigid air. Katniss turns to fire off arrows at the dogs trailing them the closest, but she misses more often than not and notes with dread the dwindling weight of her sheath. In the dark and on the run, even  _her_  aim was failing, and her panic reaches another high as she realizes that she and Peeta will tire long before the dogs do. They break the treeline panting and clutching their ribs, moving slower with each passing breath. As they visibly tire, the pack gets braver, nipping at their heels with white flashing teeth and excited snarls.

"We have to climb, Peeta!" she gasps.

The dogs bay gleefully and one of them snaps close enough to Katniss' heel to catch it. The ground rushes up to catch her as she trips. She catches herself before her head can hit the snow, but the breath is knocked out of her nonetheless. Dazed and gasping for air, she tries to scramble to her feet. Its no use. The first dog is on her before she can blink, trying to sink it's teeth through the tough leather on the collar of her father's coat.

It yelps suddenly and is heaved off her. Ten feet away, something crashes into the underbrush and whimpers pathetically. Strong hands around her waist lift her to her feet, and then higher until she is staring at a thick, low hanging branch. She latches onto it and starts climbing, looking back just as Peeta jumps and pulls himself up onto the same branch.

The pack leaps at the tree, milling around it in an excited frenzy and yapping. Shaking and trying to catch her breath, she clutches the trunk as Peeta hoists himself onto her branch with a grunt and sinks into an exhausted slump.

His eyes rake over her face searchingly.

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," she says. "You?"

"You've got a cut," he says, and cups her cheek as he runs his thumb along her brow. As he does so, she notes a dull throbbing on her forehead.

"Its ok. I'm fine."

His face tightens for a moment. He doesn't believe her.

"What do we do now?" he asks.

She looks down at the dogs still circling beneath them and contemplates their options. There is no time to lose. They have to get back to Rory as soon as possible, but can't climb down until the dogs are gone. Otherwise, they risked not coming home at all.

In the distance, a dull rumble shocks the air. The dogs whine, and as the rumbling grows louder, their pacing grows frenzied until they turn tail and flash back through the trees.

"What is that?," Peeta says.

She shakes her head in confusion, twisting around on the branch to pinpoint where it is coming from. As she does, a series of white, yellow and red lights flash through the trees. The rumbling becomes a roar as the lights snake past them through the woods.

"Those are engines," Peeta says. "Like in trucks. And there's a lot of them."

"The Capitol is here," she says, eyes wide, and in the darkness, she finds herself gripping the tree and wishing it were Peeta's hand instead.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so much fun to write! K+P on adventures are my favorite. Does it show? ;)
> 
> Huge thanks to my wonderful beta Opaque, who, as usual, did a stunning job with what I gave her and was a huge help with the medical side of this chapter.
> 
> And another huge thanks to the lovely folks reading this, and the incredibly kind-hearted people reviewing! And to all the silent readers, too... I see you in my stats and it brings me so much joy to know that you're lurking. ;)
> 
> See you guys next week!


	12. Sae's Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're so stupid, Peeta," she mumbles, and buries her face in his neck.

_**xii**_.

* * *

Dawn's first smoky-blue light is leaking over the District by the time she and Peeta wriggle back through the fence. Only the urgency of returning to Rory is keeping her on her feet as her breath comes in ragged gasps. They bolt recklessly through the maze of backyards in the Seam, every house blurring into the next in an endless patchwork of hopped fences, startled goats and ducked washing lines. As they near her house, she grows careless and darts into the street, her feet striking the snow covered dirt silently. Behind her, Peeta curses and follows.

Finally, she's throwing herself through the front door.

Inside it's dark, and a large figure slumped over on the table next to Rory's prone form jolts upright as she tumbles in. In the dim streetlight easing in through the open door she can make out Gale's drawn face and swollen eyes. The chair under him squeals against the wood floor as he bolts to his feet.

The air is as thick as gruel, and she can feel the blood pounding in her hands. She is afraid of what will happen if she looks at him, so instead she tugs her bag off her shoulder rips it open, pulling out the willowbark.

"Where's Prim?" she says with false air of distraction.

"Right here," comes a squeak from the couch. Prim fumbles out of the well-worn quilt, nearly tripping over it as her feet get tangled. The skin around the lash on her face is swollen and purpling, and the way she winces as she stands means it feels as painful as it looks. "Did you get it?"

"Easy Prim. Yes. How is he?"

"Still warm," Gale croaks, as he sweeps a lock of sweaty, tangled hair out of Rory's face.

The door closes with a heavy creak and Peeta leans against it, his head thrown back and his eyes screwed shut as he gasps for air. Gale's eyes flicker toward the door and narrow.

"You went to the woods," he says matter-of-factly. Without having to be told, she knows that Gale sees this as a betrayal. "And you took him."

"I did what I had to."

"You're not supposed to go out there. Not on your own."

"What's the problem? I got what Rory needed. And I wasn't alone. Peeta came with me."

"I'm sure he jumped at the opportunity," Gale snorts.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means if Rory needed something, you should've come to me. You shouldn't be going to the woods. And I don't need to owe some merchant kid a life debt I can't repay."

"Then you shouldn't have disappeared. Where were you?"

He crosses his arms over his chest and frowns.

"What are you implying?" he snaps, his voice rising.

"I'm not implying anything. I'm saying it outright. This is your fault, Gale."

"How was I supposed to know this would happen?"

"If you knew there was something in that bag that could have gotten him in trouble you never should have let him wander around town alone with it! And since Rory would never have gone hunting without you, you knew that there was something in that bag. You were off doing god knows what while he was  _whipped_! You're his brother- you're supposed to be there to protect him!"

"You're a real piece of work, you know? This is more your fault than you could ever imagine-"

Prim slams a bucket down on the counter loudly, causing everyone in the room to jump.

"Gale, I need help," she says in a carefully even tone, her eyes narrowed at him.

He ignores her, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides and his jaw is so tight that Katniss can see the muscles in his cheeks flex as his teeth grind. Stepping lightly forward, he towers over her so she has to tilt her head upward to maintain eye contact. Without thinking, she takes a step back.

Gale's anger has always made him unpredictable. From schoolyard fights, to all out brawls at the Hob on Friday nights, she's seen him snap more times than she can count. Even just frustrated he could be dangerous- there'd been more than one occasion where he had destroyed his own traps when he found them empty. But he'd never turned on his family. Nor on her.

This is the first time she is afraid he actually might.

"Ok. That's enough," Peeta says, stepping in front of Katniss. "We're all tired, so lets-"

"I won't be doing a damn thing you say, merchant," Gale spits.

There's a palpable shift in the air, and both Peeta and Gale are as still as stone, as if their next twitch could be the spark that ignites an all out blaze.

"Prim," Rory cries, his eyes fluttering. Distracted by the pain in his brother's voice, Gale looks down.

"That's it!," Prim snaps, "Gale Hawthorne! This is my kitchen, and I forbid you to fight when I have a patient on my table."

"Sorry Prim," Gale mumbles, almost silently, his eyes flitting back to Peeta.

"Out!" Prim barks. "All of you, out! Katniss- go to bed! Gale- I don't care if he's your brother, you're either helping me or you're getting out of my way."

Gale's eyes flicker down to his brother and his face softens minutely. He seems to deflate, his shoulders hunching over and she wonders if this fight was about Rory or was really about something else entirely.

"What do you need, Prim?" he murmurs.

"For starters, you can get me more snow."

Gale shrugs on his coat and without another word he tromps out the backdoor.

Katniss turns her attention toward Rory as Prim starts gently removing the snow coat.

"Prim?!" Rory gasps, "It hurts."

"I know it does, and I'm going to give you something to put you back to sleep. But first, I have to do this, ok?"

"Gale's here?"

"Yes. Gale's here."

The first of the lashes comes into view as Prim clears the snow, and she glances up at Katniss.

"You need to sleep," she says, "You've been up almost all night."

"I'm fine."

"Katniss. This isn't going to be pretty. He needs his stitches now."

The blood drains from her face, and she doesn't realize she's swaying until Peeta's hand on her back becomes the only thing that keeps the room from tilting. The roar of heat and pain in her head comes on suddenly. It's one of the headaches she used to have- the ones that left her crawling on her hands and knees into the yard so she could throw up. Her last one had been so long ago she had nearly forgotten how debilitating they were. How had she survived through them? It seemed impossible that she had ever lived through something this painful- let alone multiple times.

Prim is right. She needs sleep. But first, Prim makes her sit down as she cleans the cut on her brow and bandages it. Prim's lithe fingers are smoothing ointment over her forehead when she remembers the bite on Peeta's leg. Due to its position on his thigh, he insists on cleaning it himself, and as Prim explains to him what to do, she slips out of the room. Prim had been threatening her with a cup of tea and sleep syrup, neither of which she is keen on. She isn't sure she'd be able to keep the tea down anyway.

Aching and stiff, her legs just barely make the trip from the kitchen to her room. Without pulling off her boots, she collapses on top of her bed and curls into the quilt. Across the hall in her mother's room, she can hear Peeta talking to someone quietly. Her hands reach behind her to tug the cord off her braid.

One voice answers Peeta, and then a second. Delly and Thistle. Prim must have told them to take her mother's bed. It occurs to her briefly that its strange that they chose to share a single bed when there were two separate ones, but she's distracted when her hair falls around her neck and the pounding in her skull dulls for a moment, before flaring back to life twice as painful as before. Her jaw tightens and a quiet groan escapes her before she can stop it.

She falls asleep at some point, though it must only be for a few minutes. When she wakes up again, someone has untied her boots and is pulling them off her feet. She had neglected socks in her haste to get to the woods, and when the air hits her bare feet she curls her frozen toes. There's a quiet laugh, and the quilt is tugged down over her feet and tucked beneath them.

A series of creaks, and then the bed dips beside her. Cracking her eyes open, she watches as Peeta rubs his hands over his face.

"We don't work today," she says. "Its Sunday."

"Oh. You're still awake. No. But the supply delivery for the month is today."

"Not until ten."

"Yeah. But I don't think-"

"You need sleep too."

She closes her eyes. Yawns. Light is creeping in through the window, and even through her eyelids she can see it. Her head pounds mercilessly. If it only if would stop for moment, she could get back to sleep. Just one moment.

That must be why she asks him to stay. To brush her hair. To run his fingers lightly over the chilled skin of her arms. For the warmth he provides as he curls up next to her.

Just as she suspects, the feeling of his hands moving through the tangled waves of her hair is what she needs to lessen the pain, for just a moment. She slips away.

* * *

The bed is moving.

"Peeta?"

"I have to go. The delivery is in less than hour."

She sits up. Her head still aches fiercely and though still not fully conscious, she reaches for her shoes.

"I'm coming."

"Katniss, you shouldn't-"

"Thread will be there. I'm coming."

He fails to talk her out of it and a few minutes later they are bundled up again and making their way toward town. Peeta is limping just slightly, and she realizes his bite wound must be more painful than he had let on. The puncture hadn't looked bad, but looks could be deceiving with dog bites. Worriedly watching his staggered gait, she resolves to keep an eye on him.

She had been so absorbed in trying to get back to Rory, that she had nearly forgotten about the caravan of vehicles they encountered in the forest until one roars by. Just a minute later, another one passes them in a rush of cold air and smoke. As they near downtown, more and more of them pass until the streets are filled with rumbling vehicles. An armed peacekeeper is stationed on every corner and are patrolling the streets in twos, so she and Peeta can't comment on the presence of the trucks, but a shared glance between them is all they really need.

One or two vehicles in the merchant district isn't anything unusual. Peacekeepers accompanied them, either brought in for the Reaping, to provide security during quality control checks on the coal, or on supply deliveries. But there had never been this many before, and certainly not armed as heavily as these peacekeepers were. It was highly unusual, and no doubt connected to last night's riots.

She's right in the end about Thread being at the bakery and Peeta subtly slips his hand around her waist as they approach it. The back door is already propped open and peacekeepers carrying boxes are marching between the trucks that line the street and the kitchen. They had started the delivery without them and, by the looks of it, much earlier than their scheduled time.

Any casual observer would see the bakery getting extra stock for winter, but she sees something much more alarming: a change in procedure.

They slip inside amidst the activity and Peeta's eyes widen at the state of his normally pristine kitchen. Every available surface from the table to the stove-top has been stacked high with boxes marked with yellow and red graphics. A peacekeeper with grease stained hands has left fingerprints on some of the corners of the boxes, which apparently means something to Peeta because he glances quickly at his oven.

"They've disconnected the gas for the stove," he whispers into her ear as Thread marches into the kitchen.

"Mr. Mellark," Thread greets them stonily, "Where were you?"

Peeta smiles lightly.

"It was a Saturday night sir. We were where most people our age would be- up until curfew, of course."

Thread gives him a thin smile. His eyes dart to Katniss as she ducks her head to hide the embarrassment that stains her face at what Peeta is implying.

"Of course," he says, while his gaze lingers on the bandage on her forehead.

He withdraws a blade from his belt and flips it open, before plunging it into the top of a box. The loud pop of the puncture makes her flinch, and Peeta's hand tightens around her. Her head gives another painful throb as the pressure begins to increase and she swallows to keep herself from whimpering.

"I assume you're aware this is not your regular shipment."

"Yes sir."

Thread tears the knife through the cardboard mercilessly, then pulls out a clear plastic bag, marked with the Capitol's red and gold seal. In large, blocky letters underneath the seal are the words 'Emergency Ration'. Inside the bag is a dark-crusted, pre-sliced loaf of bread.

Its a tesserae ration, pre-baked.

He plunges his knife through the top of a second box and pulls out a second bag, also marked with the Capitol's seal, but there is nothing written underneath it. It was a downy looking loaf of white bread. He holds them both up in front of Peeta in one hand.

"From now on," he says, his small eyes glittering darkly, "You'll sell this bread.  _Only_ this bread. Nothing else. Understood?"

"Yes sir."

"You will not bake bread. You will sell this."

"Yes sir."

"Do you know what will happen if I find out that you have been selling something else?"

"No, sir."

Thread gives that same strange, thin smile from before.

"You'll want to keep it that way."

"Yes sir."

He whips around suddenly.

"Clear out," he bellows. The volume of his voice causes another jolt of pain to race through her head.

The peacekeepers in the kitchen rush to the exit, leaving she and Peeta alone with Thread.

He reaches forward, and before she can stop him, yanks a piece of paper out of her pocket. Sae's note to her- she had forgotten all about it. Its crumpled and dirty- the result of her rough and tumble midnight trip to the woods- and Thread looks at it in disgust before ripping it open. Examining it closely, he draws it up to his face as his eyebrows knit together.

"What the hell is this?" he barks, flipping it around to show her.

The paper moves through the air slowly, Thread lips forming words she understands only tangentially. Floating somewhere just above where this conversation is taking place, she examines the letter Sae had left for her.

Theres nothing written on the paper. At least, she doesn't think so. She tries to reach back into her memory and recall whether Greasy Sae could even read or write. All there are are five shakily drawn ovals, only one of which is shaded in. There is a hand with the fingers curling inward, and a foot with the toes flexed out. And finally, there is a roughly rendered face with a grotesque smile and a scribble on its forehead.

Its so bizarre that she is momentarily speechless, baffled by the odd collection of disjointed images.

"Answer me!" Thread barks. The loudness of his voice causes one of her eyes to squinch shut.

She says the only thing she can think of.

"I have no idea, sir."

Thread's jaw works and he looks back down at the scribblings in Sae's letter, before folding it carefully and pocketing it.

"I think you think you're very clever Ms. Everdeen," he says, cold and calm. "Let me assure you that you're not."

Her blood pumps a fluttering staccato in her ears and she stands as still as she can while he rakes his flinty eyes over her face.

"I will preserve order in this District," he continues. "I will end the rebellion. And, Ms. Everdeen, I will find out who's behind it."

"We'll all feel a lot safer once you do, Sir," says Peeta.

Thread's lip twitches.

"We'll be back to check your numbers soon, Mellark."

And then he's gone.

The door slams behind him, causing the overhead light to sway and flicker ominously. Shadows grow and shrink around the room in dream-like contractions as the light swings back and forth. Peeta turns to her and starts talking. She hears the words but they don't mean anything. There's a shimmer in the corners of her eyes, something like sunlight dancing on water.

It dawns on her in a removed way that she has experienced this before. It's some kind of buffer before her seizures. All of these symptoms: headaches, the unreality, the sparkling at the edges of her vision, they're all signs. With a detached sense of horror, she realizes that she knows what comes next. It's going to happen right now, in front of someone else for the first time since her initial seizure all those months ago. Infinitely worse, it would be Peeta.

Shame and anxiety flit through her consciousness and melt into the complicated slop of confusion she could credit solely to Peeta Mellark. She despairs at how easily he threw his lot in with hers, when she did nothing but need from him.

"Peeta," she says, her tongue strange and clumsy as they form her words, "Don't tell Prim."

Then, nothing.

* * *

Before her eyes are open she knows that the window is. From outside, she can hear the muted bustle of town- voices, carts rumbling along, the purr of an engine. Her nose is cold.

She opens her eyes. Waves of white cotton surround her, like a lake frozen in time mid-storm. It's a blanket, stuffed with down. Only merchants have these.

The feel of the material that covers it is soft and light under her fingertips, and she indulges in allowing her hands to wander over it, equally curious as she is wickedly jealous. What an incredible luxury it would be to sleep in a down quilt every night. She pulls it to her face and breathes in a scent she vaguely recognizes as familiar- detergent, spices and faint sweat.

It smelled nice. Like something she could trust.

It dawns on her slowly- she is in a merchant home. She throws the down quilt off and looks around the room wildly. Its empty except for the bed and a line of clothes folded and stacked neatly at the foot of the bed. There is no furniture, no lighting other than the electric light overhead.

Odd.

She crawls out of bed and is momentarily dizzy. As it passes, she pads out of the room and into a long hallway lined with doors. There is no furniture. No personal effects. Nothing.

There's not even that much dirt.

If it weren't for the bed and folded clothes, she wouldn't suspect a soul lived here at all.

"Hello?"

There's no answer, so she explores. The doors that line the hallway are closed but not locked, and each one hides another empty, but spotless, room.

At the end of the hall is the last door and it is the only one that's open. Initially, this had made her anxious to approach it. Her instincts urge her to flee, but she doesn't know where her coat is. Or her boots. And, if the tip of her nose is any indication, it is wickedly cold outside. She pushes the final door open and steps inside the room. Its far from empty.

There is not a surface in it that is clear- recycled cans and glass pots line the desk and bookcases with hand-mixed dyes. Some she even recognizes as belonging to Thistle. But this can't be Thistle's house. Even with her tattoo money, there is no possible way she could afford a quilt like that. Handbound books are scattered everywhere from the desk to the floor, and they are filled with meticulous pencil sketches of faces, buildings and plants.

Then, she sees it. All around her, fire.

Only its not real. It's painted onto large pieces of scrap wood in smoky washes of inks that stain the wood in splashes of delicately modeled color, while charcoal darkened pencil drawings sketch out the merchant quarter that had burned to the ground almost six months ago. As she examines the pieces, she realizes that they are arranged in a sequential order.

There is a girl with grey eyes and a dark halo of messy hair, her face blurry and obscured by the neck of her shirt, which she is holding over her mouth. She passes the painter, runs ahead, and is swallowed by the smoke of the a collapsing building. The painter, who has run after her, watches as she stumbles and falls, her temple catching the edge of a curb. The final panel is a pair of hands and scarred arms- one cradling the back of her head, the other disappearing behind her back.

The painter saved that girl.

How long she stands there she doesn't know. A few minutes. Maybe fifteen. Or thirty.

"Katniss?"

Its Peeta. This is his house. These paintings- they are Peeta's.

"I'm here," she says.

The door creaks open and she turns around. As she does, its dawns on her that the ethereal girl in Peeta's paintings with the dark hair and grey eyes is familiar.

In fact, she knows that face very well. Its hers.

Peeta stands in shock outside the room.

"Katniss… what happened?!" he implores. "You're ok- what happened? I didn't know what to do, I told Delly to go get Prim but I didn't tell her-"

As if remembering something catastrophic, Peeta freezes, and his eyes widen and slide around the room, then back to her.

"It was you," she utters. It was Peeta who had pulled her from that fire. Peeta who had brought her to the Hawthorne's, where she woke up hours later. And he had never said a word.  _No one had._  Why?

His mouth drops open in horror and all the color drains from his face.

She steps towards the doorway, head tilted slightly to one side and her brows knit in confusion. It didn't make any sense. His pupils fatten and flit in a panicked dance between hers.

"This whole time- I never knew…" she says. Its as if her words are a strong gust of wind that collapses him to wreckage. She stands there in mute shock as his eyes well and an errant tear streaks down his face.

"You weren't supposed to find out like this. Sorry- I'm so sorry," he chokes, roughly brushing his cheek with the heel of his palm. "I didn't even know it was gone- I was running so fast, I - you weren't moving. You can't imagine what it felt like to see you-"

He pauses to breathe, and she wants to tell him that he's not making any sense, but she is too fascinated by what he is saying to get her mouth to move.

"I don't even know where it fell. I must have walked that road a thousand times afterward looking for it. I kept hoping it would be there, somewhere, underneath all those ashes. But it wasn't."

And all at once, she understands. He's talking about her father's bow. He saved her and never said a word because in the process, he had lost the bow. And he was ashamed.

That's how he knew to watch the list of tesserae recipients. That how he knew for sure that she was starving, again. That's why he had seen her name on the list. How he knew to watch the line of women outside Cray's door. He had been watching out for her from the very start.

She rushes forward and wraps her arms around him tightly. He's jittery with adrenaline, his skin cold and clammy under hers.

Of course it wasn't his fault. Of course he believed that it was.

Of course it had been him that dragged her out of that fire. That's what he did. He protected her.

"You're so stupid, Peeta," she mumbles, and buries her face in his neck. He is rigid in her arms for a moment, before he lets out a sudden, shocked laugh, like she's said or done something completely surprising, and wraps his own arms around her.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey guys! Thanks for reading! I really enjoyed hearing from you last week! I've accumulated a few questions, so I'm going to take a minute and answer them:
> 
> Where is Madge?
> 
> She's not gone anywhere, she's been busy with some serious stuff, but she'll be back to reveal it and everything will make sense. Someone mentioned she's being selfish in her fight with Katniss, but please remember that her feelings have been really hurt by someone who she considered herself very close to. Madge is sensitive and headstrong, and it doesn't help that she feels replaced by Delly.
> 
> Where was Gale?!
> 
> I promise to reveal where Gale was soon- suffice to say Prim knows, and she's incredibly unhappy about it. Feel free to make wild assumptions as to how Prim would know.
> 
> Did Gale leave his younger siblings alone?
> 
> Vick and Posy were with Mom and Laundry. :) Domestic!Hawthorne tribe is something I miss writing :(
> 
> Update tomorrow?
> 
> You have no idea how badly I wish I could write this faster. Alas, I have a job and a partner and sometimes I need to eat. ;)
> 
> Thank you guys so much, and I can't wait to see what you have to say! And silent lurkers, I see you, and just you being here is the coolest thing. I'm serious.
> 
> Until next time!


	13. Proportion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You have to understand. All of our thoughts and feelings- everything we are, really- are little electric shocks in our brains. If anything hurts the brain, and those shocks are interrupted… everything goes haywire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Violence, (Implied) Sexual Violence.

_**xiii**_.

* * *

The blade flips open. Her fingers dance along its edge. The frigid metal taps the back of her hand. A sharp jerk of her wrist. A flash of silver in the dim candlelight. The blade flips shut.

She can't sit still. Her leg bounces ceaselessly. When Prim left her in Peeta's bed, Katniss promised she would try to sleep. Instead, she's sitting at the edge of the bed flipping her knife open and shut robotically, straining her ears to eavesdrop on the conversation Prim and Peeta are having about her in the hallway.

"What happened?"

"It was so fast. One minute she was standing next to me, the next- I don't know how to describe it. She made this sound… it was like a groan, and then she was on the ground twitching. I tried to talk to her, but I don't think she could hear me."

Katniss squeezes her eyes shut and flicks her wrist. The knife opens.

"Before that, did she hit her head?"

"No. It happened suddenly. One minute, she's fine, the next, she…"

Peeta and Prim are silent for a moment. Another flick of her wrist snaps the knife shut.

"Did she seem… weird? Like, quiet? Maybe a little snappy? More so than usual, I mean. Maybe she complained of a headache?"

Peeta murmurs his reply and she can't hear it.

"No. I guess she wouldn't. Um, let's try this. Did she unbraid her hair? Was she talking slowly? Wincing at loud sounds? Squinting?"

"Yes. Yes, all of it. What does that mean?"

She needs to stand up. Move. Do something. If she does, however, Prim will hear the creaking of the floorboards and get upset. Frustrated, she flops backward and throws an arm over her eyes.

"It means that she's sick. And Peeta... its not the kind where you get better."

In the end, no one had to tell Prim what happened. When Delly showed up breathless and panicked at the house, she knew. With Rory freshly stitched and slumbering by his brother's side, Prim and Delly had trecked to the bakery, where the younger girl went into action. Katniss, still a little fuzzy, allowed Prim to bully her into tea, and then Peeta's bed, but she did manage to insist that Prim find some time for sleep as well.

"-don't really know much about them," Prim's quiet voice interrupts her thoughts. "Except that they started after you brought her to us. And they're dangerous. My mom had patients who got them after getting hurt in the mines, or going off white liquor, and they… um. They do things to your head."

Katniss' eyes shoot open and roll toward the door. Prim had never told her this.

"Like what?"

"You have to understand. All of our thoughts and feelings- everything we are, really- are little electric shocks in our brains. If anything hurts the brain, and those shocks are interrupted… everything goes haywire."

Prim's voice catches a little and Katniss has to resist the urge to rise and reveal her wakefulness. She doesn't want to hear her sister have to be brave for her.

"It could get bad, Peeta," Prim continues, "her memory, her thoughts- everything."

Prim pauses to clear her throat, and the roughness of her voice reveals her exhaustion. Even though she wants to ask Prim to stay here with her, Prim wouldn't allow it. She would need to return to Rory. The cool emptiness of the large bed feels like its choking her.

"A while back, she had these headaches. I'm not surprised she never said anything. She tried her best to hide it. But I could see it. She wasn't eating, even when we had food. I think it was the pain. It made her nauseous. Gale was tearing his hair out- he was so worried about her. He found this source and has been trading for headache medicine from the Capitol. And I've been giving it to her. In her tea. But if she knew..."

"...she would have never taken it," Peeta finishes for her.

"Right. And now, Gale's source is scared. We can't get her more."

A beat of silence fills the air and everything Prim has said runs through her mind. Every cup of tea Prim's given her, all with a straight face. She is torn between a dull betrayal and horror. If Prim is right, these seizures could have already taken chunks of her memory and she stands to lose more still. She could lose who she was entirely. Exist as nothing more than a vacant body. Every memory of her father, the ones she keeps locked tightly away, gone forever. Had she lost any already?

Would she even know if she had?

The floor falls out from under her as the full impact of Prim's words hit her.

Gale had said Rory's whipping was her fault.

_More than she knew._

And then all the pieces fall together.

It plays out like a movie in her mind: Prim, Rory and Gale go to meet with Gale's source. It's someone who could afford medicine from the Capitol, but doesn't need it.

Rory and Prim want to leave. They have the medication, and Prim is anxious to get home and stash it. Rory is nervous. He thinks his brother is too cavalier about taking risks. Gale and his source are friends. He doesn't want to leave yet, but thats ok. They've done this a thousand times, and he feels safe sending Rory and Prim home alone.

Prim and Rory leave, and walk right through the town square swarming with peacekeepers, who are all wondering the same thing. Why are two Seam kids in the merchant quarter nearing curfew? They stick out like sore thumbs, especially Rory. Dark skinned and incredibly tall, Rory would be easy to pick out of a crowd. He's not nearly as intimidating as Gale. Nor as stealthy. They're easy targets.

She rolls onto her side, shoves the down quilt into her mouth and bites down hard. Peeta says something quietly, and the gentle cadence of his words gets lost in the roar of blood in her ears.

Gale hadn't been lying. It was her fault.

As she sobs, the quilt mutes the tortured sounds that tear from her throat.

* * *

She's dreaming. There's no fire, just smoke. She's running through great, dark billows of it, her lungs burning as it creeps through the cloth she's holding over her face. People rush by, hurtling through the smoke with echoing footstep. Nothing more than anonymous bodies in dark clouds. She's too slow to catch a look at their faces, and when she does, their faces are streaked black by soot, and their eye are green glints in the darkness. Instinct tells her to run when one locks eyes with her and snarls.

She whips her head away, breathing in heavy gulps, and starts jogging. The smoke thickens and pools around her like water, swirling in eddies.

Pushing forward, she looks up in horror when she hears the baying of a dog. The darkness glitters with green and, faintly, she can hear Rory crying.

She rushes forward, screaming for Rory until her throat is raw and tight. The smoke becomes a rush of icy, opalescent black waves that bufet her. The pitch of Rory's voice is increasing as she struggles against the current and panic wraps its strong fingers around her heart. She has to find him.

A wave crests and crashes over her, thrusting her deep into the dark silence of the freezing water. The surface glints above her before disappearing, and as she suffocates in darkness, she realizes that Rory is still screaming, but she'll never reach him. She doesn't even know which way is up anymore.

* * *

Day by day, Rory is healing. The skin of his back knits itself together in long, gnarled trails of pink. Prim lets him move around the house, but he's not allowed to lift anything, and his torso is wrapped in sterile rags boiled white and crisp by his mother. With a strange jerk in her chest, Katniss realizes that there's an unspoken energy between Rory and Prim that hadn't been there before. Rory spends all day surreptitiously dogging Prim and beams stupidly anytime she berates him for doing something he shouldn't.

If Rory is acting odd, Prim's is even worse. She can barely finish a sentence when Rory is in the room without trailing off in the middle of her thought. Confused and slightly alarmed, Katniss notes that something has definitely changed, though she can't figure out exactly what.

And she doesn't waste her time trying to. There are other worries to focus on, like the reemergence of her headaches in the wake of the loss of her medication. Prim finally sits her down and gives her an edited version of what she had told Peeta, leaving out Gale's involvement. At first, Prim tries to apologize, but Katniss waves her off. The reasons Prim never told her make sense, even if they hurt.

And underneath that is the constant rushing current of guilt. Because if the scars on Rory's back are her fault, then so is the scar on Prim's face.

Its just a week after the accident when the headaches start again.

The first symptoms hit her mid-morning. Her right arm tingles before going slightly numb. She has trouble focusing. By noon, she is jittery, her head prickling with the first waves of pain. After that, all it takes is a flash of sunlight, a loud voice, or a dropped pot. And it then the throbbing starts.

Nighttime is the worst. The crescendo of heat and pain in her head are so terrible that even getting out of bed requires a concentrated effort.

Its lonely. Prim and Rory do their best to take care of her, but when the pain is so bad that she can only speak in monosyllabic sentences, they clear out and leave her to try and sleep. As grateful as she is for the cool quiet of her dark room, it reminds her that as much as others may want to help; in this, she really is all alone. They don't know- they can't know- what it feels like. And maybe that's what is worst of all.

She does her best to fight. Afternoon naps become a daily ritual she both loathes and looks forward to. Drinking lots of water and tea means she always has a glass or mug at her elbow, and since she and Gale are not speaking (again), Rory promises that once he's back on his feet, he's going to keep her fully stocked with willowbark.

She can't meet his eyes.

At night, she dreams of smoke and running toward the voice of a person she is doomed to fail. Sometimes its Rory. Other times its Prim. Mostly, it's no one and everyone all at once. The smoke becomes rushing water, and she is dragged into its depths and crushed beneath its weight.

January ends abruptly in a disorienting cloud of sleeplessness.

* * *

It's not long afterward that school starts up again and this year the halls and classrooms are more boisterous than they have been in years.

The first day after winter break is usually a somber one. It marks that winter is more than halfway through, and year after year, it marks all those who return to the classroom as survivors. Between December and January, the Capitol skips its supply delivery for the 'holidays', a phrase which means next to nothing to anyone in Twelve.

This year, it seems more have survived, and there is an irrepressible sense of giddiness in the halls of the school.

There are no holidays in Twelve that are celebrated in December. And even if there were, they would be nothing to celebrate with, because rations are cut from the second half of December until February.

Only after school resumed did the shipments of rations return. Gale has always said this was because the Capitol wanted people to associate their children's attendance in school to food, so they'd be less likely to try to keep them home to work. As if the mandatory attendance policy wasn't enough already.

Her mind turns this over hazily during lunch on her first day back at school, and she contemplates the students who haven't returned. They are all from the Seam and have most likely starved.

"You ok, Katniss?" Delly asks around a mouthful of apple. "You're looking kind of pale."

No, she is not ok. The cafeteria is loud and smells like moldy wood and boiled eggs. Nothing about this is remotely ok.

She nods mutely at Delly, whose eyes flicker to Katniss' untouched food and back up. Delly raises a pale eyebrow and nudges her wax-paper wrapped lump of cheese toward her. A heated throb echoes through her head and she eyes the cheese as if not understanding what it is.

"You sure? You really don't look too hot," Thistle says, shooting a knowing look at Delly. Instead of answering, Katniss drops her head onto her folded arms. The darkness she finds in the space between her arms is such a relief she decides she's staying there.

An indeterminate time later, Delly is whispering to her.

"Its time for class."

She's deathly afraid that if she moves she's going to throw up. Peeking one eye out over her arms, she groans as Delly's concerned face swims into view.

"The bell rang five minutes ago. We have to go."

Dragging herself to her feet, she sways as she lifts her pack onto her shoulder.

"Del, c'mon. Look at her," says Thistle. "She can't stay here."

"I'm ok," Katniss mumbles, and promptly throws up on the table.

"Yeah, seems like it," Thistle mutters.

"Oh Katniss," Delly says, brushing her bangs off her cheeks. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Her mouth was full," Thistle grunts as Katniss wipes her mouth with a shaky hand. She strongly suspects Delly whacked her.

"What's going on here?" It's a male peacekeeper, one of the new ones that has been stationed in the cafeteria since the fight where Thistle broke her nose. "The bell rang. Get to class."

"Sir, I think she should go home," says Delly.

"And I think you should be in class. Get moving."

Katniss sits heavily back down and drops her head in her hands as spots flash in her vision. Catching the attention of a peacekeeper is never a good thing. Especially the young ones, who constantly feel they have something to prove.

If the room would stop tilting, she could make an escape.

"Cadet," comes the gruffer voice of an older peacekeeper. "That's the baker's wife."

A shock runs through her. It was strange to be addressed that way, though she supposes it is good that she is. It's what she and Peeta wanted, after all. To convince them.

The older peacekeeper dismisses the younger one and takes Katniss' arm, helping her to stand up.

"I can clean the table," she mutters.

"No need," the peacekeeper responds. "You two, get to class."

She shoots a panicked glance toward Delly and Thistle, who look on helplessly as they are shuffled out of the room by another peacekeeper.

She does not want to be separated from them. Instinctively she knows not to let herself become isolated, though she can't pinpoint why or how she knows this. Just that she does, and she believes it with the same kind of ardent surety she ascribes to the rising of the sun or the fading pulse of a dying rabbit.

"I have to go to class," she says, trying to pull her arm from his. "I don't know what happened, but I feel fine. Really."

Her protests fall on deaf ears, and as he walks her out of the school, cold air prickles against her cheeks and stings her eyes to tears.

"You're a young thing, aren't you?"

Anger. Vicious and quick. She will be no one's rabbit.

Frigid metal bites her palm as her hand closes around the knife in her pocket. Today, her calculated risk in bringing it along with her could turn the odds in her favor. Or maybe it would just even them, she thinks, as the ground tilts under her feet and her stomach turns. Her jaw goes weak and saliva gathers in her mouth. The nausea is back, and this time it has brought chills along with it. She clamps down hard on the feeling and wills it away as she fumbles to flip the safety off the end of her knife without removing it from her pocket.

"Well, who am I to say anything. Sixteen is old enough for the Capitol."

Cold sweat breaks out on her neck. Her thoughts chase one another in a dizzying race for her attention. Where were they going? She doesn't have the strength to struggle against him. She'll have to bide her time, find an opportunity to get away. Or make one.

Every footstep is a concentrated effort on its own, but she keeps her eyes are trained on the muscles of his neck dancing as he continues to talk. Everything he says is lost on her. He is larger than she is, but he is also much older, she thinks, as she notes the white hairs at his temple and the loose skin under his jaw. In the complacency that comes with age and the unchecked power over other human lives, he has become sloppy and allowed himself a weakness.

How will she do it, if she needs to? He is much larger than she is and at close quarters he would overpower her easily. Speed would be her advantage.

Its that thought that makes it real.

If she needs to, she will kill him. Killing is not new to her. Survival has demanded it before and she is certain that it will again. But killing a human is a new. Imagining the act is impossible, though objectively she can understand the physicality of it. The feeling of it- the tangibility and realness- is nothing more than a blank space in her mind.

The knife she had would demand close quarters for the act. Undoubtedly, she would get his blood on her face. Her hands. She would feel him struggle against her. Feel the breath grow shallow in his chest. She knows all of this and yet she cannot piece it all together in a cohesive whole. They are only details from hunting animals that are impossible to reconcile when applied to a human.

There will be a moment before the act where she is the same as she is now, and a moment afterward where she will not be.

As she realizes this, they stop, and all the blood drains from her head. But he has taken her somewhere that she knows.

The bakery.

The older man helps her inside, and she stumbles straight into Peeta's arms. The weight of her head falls against his shoulder and she grips his arms with white knuckles. She doesn't dare think about the line between what is for her and what is for their audience, because even if it was there to find, she's afraid to know the answer.

"She's sick," says the peacekeeper gruffly. "With her... condition, I thought it was better to bring her to you."

"Thank you, Sir," says Peeta, his hand resting against the back of her head. "I appreciate it."

The peacekeeper clears his throat.

"I was married once," he says, his voice crackling roughly with phlegm. He is from Two, perhaps not accustomed to the ferocity of Twelve's winters. "My wife got like that too. I heard its harder the younger they are."

The only way she knows Peeta has read something in his words that she hasn't is because he stiffens.

"If its alright with you, Sir, I'm going to get her to bed."

"Yes. Right. Go ahead."

"Thank you again."

The door chimes.

"What happened?" he asks, "Did you-"

Her fingers dig into his shoulders.

"I need to lie down."

Peeta locks up the store. With nothing to bake and nothing to clean, there is little he does now beside sit at the front of the store and sell bread both of them suspect are nutritionally empty. There was nothing to be done until they figured a way around it.

So he has no qualms about shutting down early to help her up the narrow staircase to his apartment. He won't let her lie down though and insists on dragging her to the apartment's tiny bathroom.

Behind the curtain that conceals the tub, there is a faucethead protruding from the wall. When he turns a handle below it, water sprays from the faucet into the tub.

He clears his throat.

"My mom got headaches too," he says. "This always helped. We don't get much water, so you'll only have a few minutes, but I think it will help you too."

The temperature of the tiny room rises and she extends her fingers into the spray. The water coming from the wall is warm. She bites back a groan.

As soon as Peeta is gone, she flicks off the electric light, strips out of her clothes and slides under the spray. It beats against her scalp, runs down her temples and over her shoulders. Her toes curl. This is another luxury she has never experienced- hot water directly from the wall. Shivering, she lowers herself onto her side on the floor in the humid heat, allowing her braid to slap the porcelain loudly.

It's the only sound in the tiny room beside the rush of water against her skin and a low hissing from inside the wall. In the near silence, the pounding of blood in her ears grows heavy and slow. With every breath she takes she inhales humidity, loosening the tightness in her chest and throat and making her nose run. She wipes it with a lazy hand, then curls into herself and closes her eyes.

There's no smoke, just water. Glittering and black. Rushing around her, forcing its way down her throat and up her nose. Someone is screaming. A wave rises, and as it begins to crest, an echoing crash wakes her.

She sits up suddenly, breathing in great gulps of moisture heavy air and holding her arms around her chest as she scrambles backward against the wall.

"Katniss?! Are you ok? You were screaming-"

"Fine!" she yelps. "I'm fine, I- I must have fallen asleep."

Peeta hesitates in the doorway of the dark room as steam billows around him. There is a beat of silence.

"Ok," he says, hesitantly. "Maybe you should lie down now."

"Yes."

But she does not want to be alone. As her the ache in her head fades to a biteless thumping, the events of the afternoon catch up to her. She wraps herself in his quilt and wanders out of the bedroom. She finds Peeta in his studio, pouring over one of his many sketchbooks.

"I was going to kill him," she says, and Peeta jumps and snaps the sketchbook shut.

"Who?"

"The peacekeeper. I was going to kill him. I thought- I don't know. I don't know what I thought."

Peeta eyes her carefully, his hand sliding over the cover of the book.

"You were scared."

By his tone, she knows he is neither condemning nor condoning any action she felt she would have taken to protect herself.

"I-" It would be pointless to lie. Peeta already knew. "Yes."

"It was smart to be scared. Really smart, actually. But, Katniss... he thought you were pregnant."

"What? Why would he think that?"

Peeta's eyes fall down to his book and he cracks it open, flipping through it.

"He knew who you were. Didn't you recognize him? He's comes to the bakery a lot and he's been stationed in Twelve for as long as I can remember. You reminded him of someone and he jumped to a conclusion."

"His wife."

"That's what I think, anyway."

Peeta pauses flipping through his book, his eyes searching the page in front of him for something. Indecision flickers on his face before he tilts the book around.

"I have them too, you know. The nightmares."

Drawn in exquisite detail is a view of the old merchant quarter. Just over the high roofline of the storefronts, the sky is washed in a hazy orange. In the distance, a small, but feminine silhouette rounds a corner. It's her.

"Am I there? In your dreams?," she says, as she reaches out and takes the book from his hands.

Page after page- its the fire. Over and over. She flips to the front of the book, where in meticulous strokes of pencil, he has depicted their classroom from last year. This was drawn before the fire, when Peeta was still in school. She remembers suddenly the day she had caught his eyes from across the classroom and searches out her desk. Sure enough, there she is, gazing out the window. No other face in the room is drawn with as much detail. Had he drawn this the day she caught him watching her?

A thrill races through her at the thought.

She looks up and finds Peeta watching her with that same fevered gaze from the classroom.

"Every night."

There is a second meaning in his words. Something he is willing her to understand but won't say outright.

Her eyes dart back down to the book. She turns the page and there is her own face looking back at her over her shoulder.

"You know, don't you?" he says.

Her heart thunders in her chest. She is not good at these games.

She stays silent, and snaps the book shut. Its just paper and ink, but it feels so much heavier than that.

Her head shakes from side to side.

Peeta laughs, but it sounds hollow to her. He steps forward, his hand rising hesitantly. It hovers near her face for moment, before tucking slip of damp hair behind her ear. His thumb brushes over her cheek.

There is no audience in this room.

He pulls away suddenly and turns his back on her as he busies himself screwing the lids on some of his dyes.

"Let's get you home," he says.

Her fingers curl in confusion around his sketchbook, and her gaze darts from the book to him. Would he notice? She tucks it under the quilt and slips from the room.

That night, as Prim snores softly next to her, she flips the book open to its first few pages and admires the sketches in the dim light. She imagines Peeta's hands as they sweep over the page and wonders if he is sleeping.  _If he is dreaming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, Chapter 13 on Friday the 13th! First off, there's something I need to gush about. Its the fanart the amazing orange-attitude on tumblr did for Chapter 12! Seriously, its awesome and so cool that there's now fan-art for what started out as a nagging little plot bunny for a one-shot. Anyway, the link to her art is on my profile, and I so recommend if you have a tumblr that you follow her for all the awesome work she does!
> 
> And I have to thank my beta, Opaque, who, as usual, did an incredible job with what I gave her. Her feedback and insight were indispensable in this chapter, and I really mean it when I say there's no way I would have ever gotten this far without her.
> 
> To everyone who reviewed last chapter, thank you so much for your responses and kindness. I'm always itchy on Fridays to get the chapter loaded, and hearing back from you really makes my day. Silent lurkers, your presence is also pretty darn cool, and I thank you for reading!
> 
> If you're looking for outtakes, previews or alternate scenes, you can find them all on my tumblr (link in my profile).
> 
> Until next week! ~


	14. Contraband

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm sorry," she blurts out. She doesn't know why she says it. It tastes like a lie, but feels like the truth. Gale is quiet, his face bitter. And then, it softens and he says- "Yeah. I know."

_**xiv.** _

* * *

"Hoping for a lemon?" the Peacekeeper says with a grin. He's blocking her path into the trainstation and her eyes burn with ill-concealed frustration as she nods. He's young, not much older than she is. An errant black curl blows over his forehead and as he steps aside to let her pass. To her horror, he bows ever so slightly.

"It is pity, you know," he says as she passes, "I really hate to break a pretty girl's heart... but there's no lemons on that train."

Winter rations are arriving. There is never enough fruit for every family and what fruit is there is expensive. As much as a full month's worth of food. This year, thanks to Peeta, she has enough for one lemon to split with her sister. A single lemon was the cheapest fruit there was, and could be extended further than any other. They could freeze what juice they draw from it and carve strips of its skin for tea. It would easily last them the two months they still had before spring was due to arrive.

And it was all they could afford anyway.

The peacekeeper was lying. Just playing with her. He had to be. She looks over her shoulder at him as she joins the rest of the huddled figures shifting anxiously on the platform in the snowy cold. The young man in the spotless white uniform watches her with sparkling eyes and jogs to catch up to her.

"Want to know how I know?" he asks, leaning in close to her ear. She blanches away as he whispers-

"That train's from Eleven. And lemons are from Four."

When he pulls back, the bright yellow of a lemon's skin peeks out from between his fingers as he holds it in front of her face. The fruit is masterfully shielded from prying eyes by their bodies, and she watches in amazement as he tucks the fruit in her bare, cracked hands with a wink.

"There now. Everybody loves a happy ending."

Her eyes flicker between his face and the fruit.

"I can't pay you for this," she says. If its true that there are no lemons in this year's shipment, then the cost of this lemon would be much, much more than what she had.

"Oh honey. I know you can't. That's why I'm not asking you to."

His smirk disappears behind the reflective glass of his helmet before she can protest and he melts into the crowd, indistinguishable from the other peacekeepers. She stands in utter shock for only a moment, before she realizes how dangerous it is to be out in the open with contraband fruit and hastily stuffs it in her pocket. Deeply unsettled, she jumps as the train doors thunder open.

Peacekeepers push the roiling crowd back and begin to clumsily unload boxes of rations. The air feels is electric and she is glad she made Prim and Rory stay home. February ration delivery had a history of being volatile, and already she can feel the anxious tension as the crowd presses forward en masse against the peacekeepers.

The panic starts as a whisper: "There's no lemons."

It rips through the waiting crowd like a virus.

"No lemons?"

"What do you mean no lemons?"

"There's only a few oranges-"

"Only a few!"

There's a shout. Shoving. Angry voices, rising higher and louder. A peacekeeper snaps his baton open, another cocks his gun. Alarmed, she swings her head around trying to find a path out of the crowd. This is no longer a good place to be. She pulls back from the churning mass of bodies as they rush the train, desperately trying to extricate herself before the situation devolves further. The frenzy around her makes the lemon in her pocket seem so much larger than it is. Would someone feel it as they pressed against her?

She struggles against the current of people pushing toward the train, knocking into a much taller person. Her eyes fly upward as her heart sinks into her stomach. It's Gale. Of course it is Gale. But there's no time to feel mortified. A gunshot fires and she breaks past him and out of the crowd, flying away from the station as peacekeepers march in the other direction.

The lemon knocks against her thigh as blind panic and guilt race through her. Guilt that of all those gathered there at the train station, she would be the only one walking away with anything. Guilt that the fruit had come to her for free. But it wasn't enough to share. There was only enough for one family. And it would be hers.

* * *

She arrives home safely, but the yellow secret in her jacket suddenly seems impossible to keep. As the days pass, she can't help the guilt that nips her at odd moments, like when she is washing her hands in the sink or brushing the mud off her boots as she sits on the back porch.

Why had that peacekeeper slipped her the lemon? Nothing about their interaction made any sense, and the more she considers his strangeness, the more she suspects the lemon has been tampered with. However, when she slices one end open, the flesh inside is pale gold and fresh and she can't help but wonder how he had gotten it in the first place.

At lunch that following Monday, Katniss is so absorbed pondering the events at the train station that she nearly misses that Delly is uncharacteristically subdued. Katniss is undecided on whether to bring it up, so she lets the awkwardness of Delly's lost expression and red eyes hang. And anyway, she thinks, Delly is so talkative that if something were really that wrong, she would have already brought it up. Or would she? Katniss isn't sure, but she is secretly thankful that Delly has remained silent on the matter.

If only Thistle would do the same.

The older girl keeps alluding to Delly's mood with sideways jabs at how oblivious Katniss is and though at first she could ignore her words, she is rapidly growing tired of Thistle's needling.

"Fine. Alright. Delly, what happened?" she snaps.

Delly glares.

"Well? Did you want to listen to Thistle go on all lunch about it? Obviously something is wrong. So just say what it is."

To Katniss' surprise, fat tears build in Delly's eyes. She turns and whacks Thistle on the arm. Thistle winces, but the expression on her face stays carefully neutral.

"Why do you always have to do that?" she says angrily. "Everything was fine. And anyway, what would Katniss do about it?"

"Do about what?"

Delly fiddles with her bag, which she has placed on the table in front of her. It takes Katniss a moment to realize that Delly has no lunch today.

"Tell her. She's going to find out at some point anyway. There's no way we can keep it hidden. Jimmy Holmes saw us this morning so its only a matter of time," Thistle says.

Delly sighs and bites her lip. Her eyes remained trained on her fingers, which are curling themselves around the leather drawstring of her bag.

"I got kicked out," she says miserably, then swipes at her nose.

Katniss stops chewing the food in her mouth. Her gaze flickers from Delly to Thistle and back again. Its rare that this happens in Twelve. Kicking a child out was tantamount to wishing them dead.

Whatever Delly had done, her family saw it as more than unforgivable.

Unsure of exactly how to react, she nods slowly and swallows.

"Where are you staying?" she asks. She does not want to imagine Delly sleeping out in the cold in some alley. Or worse still, in the seedy copses of trees that dot the Seam. She needs an answer that would refute the image of Delly in either of these situations.

The blonde girl seems suddenly very interested in tying her bag, too busy with it to wipe the fat, errant tear that streaks down her face.

"Thistle is letting me stay with her," she says quietly.

The air between the three of them grows still, as though Thistle and Delly both expect some kind of special reaction from her. She doesn't see why they should- she's gotten the answer she wanted. Delly is safe. And Thistle and Delly are, after all, close friends. She never pegged Thistle as that generous, but she remembers Thistle had donated a whole set of sharp, fresh needles to stitch together Rory's back. And she definitely hadn't stood to gain anything from that.

Mulling this over, Katniss finally nods.

"That's good," she says. A glance passes between Thistle and Delly, but she ignores it, relieved to know that Delly had escaped the worst of her admittedly precarious situation. Before she second guesses herself, she pushes the other half of her lunch toward Delly. She knew the misery of hunger well. It was not something she would wish on anyone, but especially not someone like Delly.

After school, she'd meant to balance the bakery's books. Normally she would sit at the large table in the kitchen and go through the numbers, but the kitchen is packed full of boxes of bread Peeta wastes no opportunity to call 'crap'.

She doesn't blame him. The bread is spongy and sticky, and sticks to the roof of your mouth as you eat it. Peeta said it was because it was made with chemicals to keep it fresh. She believes him. The bread has been sitting in the kitchen for weeks and has neither rotted nor gone stiff. It alarmed her to the point that she had taken to avoiding eating it all together. Neither of them bring up that the bread is, in all likelihood, completely nutritionally empty.

The tessarae, marked in bright yellow bags, is much worse. It had an oddly metallic flavor and was a strange greyish brown that she had never seen before. She and Peeta had secretly tried both, and decided, as much as possible, to subsidize the prices of the regular bread with the money from the liquor, which thankfully had picked up as winter had deepened.

It's all they can do. Thread is breathing down their necks, more suspicious than ever, and she fears any misstep could be their undoing.

As she arrives at the bakery, she finds Peeta outside, shifting from foot to foot.

"Hey," he says, "brought you something."

He pulls the sales ledger out of his jacket with a grin. She groans and rolls her eyes.

"What were you expecting?" he teases.

"Really, literally anything else would be better."

"Well, how about you come see Delly with me?" he asks.

"She won't be home," Katniss says immediately.

"I know. She's at Thistle's now."

Sometimes Katniss forgets how close Delly and Peeta still are. She chews the inside of her cheek.

Delly was tolerable. Thistle was not. And she had work to do.

She's about to refuse when Peeta rubs his hands up and down over her arms.

"Cold?" he asks. "Your lips are a little blue."

She blushes and realizes with horror that her voice is frozen in her throat. She thinks about Peeta's sketchbook in her bag and wonders if he has missed it yet. She can't even remember why she had wanted to bring it with her in the first place.

Somehow, she lets Peeta talk her into a trip to Thistle's house, where they find Delly sprawled out on her couch with one of her pant legs rolled up to her knee.

"Hey guys!" she says as they walk in. "You're just in time!"

Thistle smirks a little and shakes her head.

"Delly, Katniss isn't going to want to stick around for this."

"Why, what's going on?" Peeta asks.

"Delly has decided to let me brand her," Thistle says with a wink at Delly, who, to Katniss surprise, giggles breathlessly and rolls her eyes, despite turning an impressive shade of red.

"I'm getting a flower," Delly says, "on my ankle."

"Dell, are you sure about this?" says Peeta cautiously.

Delly lies back down, her eyes trained on the ceiling.

"What's the worst that could happen, Peeta? My parents find out? I don't think it matters now."

Thistle brings out a few pots of multicolored inks and lines them on a low work table next to the couch. She also sets bowls out, their insides already dyed from previous uses, and Thistle matches them to their corresponding ink.

Katniss purposefully buries her nose in the bakery's sales ledger as she curls up in a chair across the table. As Thistle preps the needle, Delly is all but bouncing with giddy excitement. She and Peeta are working on a simple sketch of a flower, though Delly doesn't seem too concerned with the overall outcome. Katniss has the sneaking suspicion that Delly is more excited by the prospect of doing something dangerous than by the actual design of the tattoo.

Finally, Peeta draws something that Delly squeals over and a self satisfied grin stretches over his face.

"That's the one, I guess."

"Oh Peeta! Its beautiful!"

Delly launches herself into Peeta's arms and hugs him fiercely.

"I'm so glad you were the one who drew it," she says. "There's no one else's art I'd rather have on my skin."

Thistle snorts.

"Oh come on," says Delly. "You didn't even want to help me with the design."

"All I care about is ink," says Thistle. "And, unless I've been wrong all this time, that's part of the design too."

"Fine Thistle. You can pick the color."

"Fine Delly. I pick black," she sings, and Delly rolls her eyes at Peeta.

Katniss squints down at the ledger, suddenly resenting the work she still has left to do, before looking up again and meeting Peeta's eyes from across the room.

"I want to see," she demands. Peeta flips around the tiny notebook he had drawn the design in.

"What do you think?" he asks.

A single gently curved line serves for the stem. A slender flourish protruding from the left is the leaf. The actual flower is not like one she's seen. Its an abstraction, with large, gently unfolding petals.

"Its nice," she chokes out. Her gaze flies back down to the ledger, where the numbers blur together. For a moment, she has to pretend that what she's looking at makes sense to her, because her mind seems to be everywhere but here.

Peeta's design is beautiful. Of course it is- Peeta drew it. But she hates it all the same.

And to make matters worse, that flutter is back. The one that had flickered to life all those months ago and had never really left. It came and went as it pleased: sometimes just a tickle, other times a flash of excited heat that was nearly impossible to contain, leaving her giddy and confused all at once. Controlling it proved to be impossible, so she did the next best thing: Ignored it.

Until it was impossible to deny. Like now.

Ever since Prim revealed to Peeta the nature of her illness, he took it upon himself to stop by her house nearly each night. Though initially this had confused her, she found that the house felt empty without him. It was nice when he was there. Not as lonely. Rory had gone home a few weeks ago, and as a result Prim was constantly at the Hawthorne's.

And even if Prim was home, on the nights when Katniss' headaches became too much, her younger sister steered clear of her entirely. There was a weird energy between them, growing more palpable everyday. Almost as if they were unsure of how to talk to one another, though their conversations were no different than they ever had been: schoolwork, housework, day to day life. But Katniss sensed there was something different in the way Prim looked at her now, and considering the possibilities made her head spin.

The look on Prim's face when Katniss rubbed her temples. It was the same look she had given her mother when she had disappeared inside of herself. Katniss' heart beats so heavily in her chest when she sees it that she's afraid the straining lump of muscle will burst.

But Peeta didn't leave her. He seemed to have no problem sitting quietly next to her as she rode out her headaches. Sometimes, he even stayed until she was asleep, combing her hair lightly, or brewing pot after pot of willow bark tea. The flutter, confusingly, came at these times too. The moments where she expected to feel nothing but pain, helplessness or aggravation. And perhaps that was the worst part of all. That she could feel this thing at her worst, when she was least able to defend herself against it.

Because she's starting to believe that the flutter belongs to Peeta, and she is terrified of what that means.

The numbers on the page swim. She's been staring at them for so long that she can't remember what day she's looking at.

Her eyes leap from the page and land on Delly, who's watching Thistle as she works. Thistle is deep in concentration, oblivious to what's going on around her. They must be close to finishing soon. She's never seen a tattoo done before, but Thistle has been working for a while, and Delly's design is not complicated.

From across the room, Peeta catches her gaze from over the top of a dog-eared book. His brow furrows. He stands and joins her at Thistle's kitchen table, his finger tucked in the pages to hold his place.

The cover of the book catches her eye and eyebrows knit together.

" _Untamed She-Cats in a Jungle Behind Bars_... _?_ " she reads.

Peeta, Delly and Thistle burst into laughter.

"Were you reading that this whole time?" Thistle chuckles.

Peeta smirks and shrugs.

"I got that as a joke, but oh my god it was so worth the money," Thistle says.

"What is it?" asks Katniss.

Thistle starts laughing again, but this time, but she's not making a sound. Just quaking silently, her eyes raised toward the ceiling and the tip of her tongue poking out from between her lips.

Katniss snatches the book from Peeta before he can explain, opening it to the page he had left off on.

" _...undulating with desire, Arabella removes Ruby's striped blouse to reveal her full-"_

Katniss thrusts the book back at Peeta, her face burning, and the room explodes in laughter again. He bites his lip in an attempt to stay silent this time, but she knows he wants to laugh too.

"I think Katniss wants to borrow it," Thistle gasps between the laughter.

"I definitely do not. Where did you even get that?" she snaps.

"I know someone," she says with a mysterious grin. "Are you sure you're not in the market for a copy? I could introduce you..."

"No."

Grinding her teeth, Katniss snaps open the ledger and disappears behind it, ignoring the taunts, and then pleas and apologies, from the rest of the room. After a moment, Peeta sits down in a chair beside her.

"Katniss, are you really angry?" he says in a low voice.

"You're making fun of me. All of you."

"Thistle's just teasing you. She doesn't mean anything by it. You know how she is. She's doing it because you're so … you know."

"No, I don't."

And she really doesn't.

"You're, well… pure."

"No I'm not!" she hisses, then drops her voice to a whisper. "Every time we see a peacekeeper you and I practically become the beast with two backs!"

Peeta grins and shakes his head, folding  _Untamed She-Cats_  shut.

"You don't understand. But its not a big deal, you know. I like you the way you are."

She opens her mouth to respond, but her voice gets stuck in her throat. She swallows heavily to relieve the dryness in her mouth, and feels her cheeks burning once again. Peeta's eyes are still laughing, but he manages not to crack a smile despite the twitch in his lips.

Swallowing doesn't work, so she coughs.

"Are you sure you're ok?" he says.

"I'm fine. Just tired," she croaks.

"Wanna go home?"

"No. I want to finish this."

"Ok. You just let me know."

She doesn't respond, glaring down at the sales ledger and viciously striking out an entry Peeta had mistakenly made twice. She's pretending to once again be immersed in the numbers on the page. Coming here tonight was a bad idea.

"Done!," Thistle crows, and immediately stands up and stretches her arms over her head, leaning first left, then right. Her back cracks loudly and she sighs.

"Ugh. So much better."

Delly leans over, trying to get a look at her ankle.

"I can't see!" she whines. Thistle smirks, her eyes soft.

"Hang on, princess," she says, and brings Delly a small hand mirror. Delly reaches for it, but Thistle holds it out of her reach.

"Uh uh," she says. "Peeta's turn. Take it over there. Come on."

"Oh, right!"

Katniss looks up from the ledger. Peeta clears his throat and opens his sketchbook to a page she hasn't seen before.

"Just want to check. This is a willow leaf, right?"

Her eyes skim the page, where Peeta has drawn a detailed line drawing of a willow leaf.

"Yes, but Peeta, what are you-"

"Just in case," he says quietly.

And she knows immediately what he means. In case I need to find willowbark. In case you can't be there to show me which tree is the right one.  _In case its for you._

The process is surprisingly fast. Thistle's ink covered needle punctures the inside of his wrist over and over, even the thickened skin of his scars. She can only watch it for a moment before the disappearance of the tip of the needle below his skin makes her light-headed, but she can't tear her eyes away from him. She's trapped in his gaze. The one that made her feel as if the whole world could fall away and he wouldn't notice. So long as she was there.

* * *

The lemon has been sitting in her empty breadbox for a few days when she makes her decision.

It's early evening. Prim is cleaning up after dinner and she asks Katniss if she is going to lie down. Its a rare night. She feels good.

"No," Katniss says, "I actually feel fine. We should do something."

"Ok, like what?"

"Knitting?"

It has become a humorous way to pass time. Their mother only had scraps of yarn left, so the sloppy squares they knit were patchy and multi-colored. Prim said that if they made enough squares, she could sew them together into a new quilt, something they desperately needed. So they took turns with the knitting needles, looping together colorful squares that Prim pinned up in anticipation for when they'd all be sewn into one. They hadn't gotten very far, but already Katniss was enormously proud of their progress, and by the slight smile on Prim's face, she could tell her sister was too.

Katniss is reaching over the table to retrieve the depleted end of a skein of soft grey wool when her foot knocks something under the couch.

Its the bow that Gale had made her.

Prim's eyes follow hers, and she clears her throat.

"Have you talked to him?" she says.

Katniss shakes her head.

She hadn't spoken to him since their fight. Guilt washes over her and she picks at one of the knitted squares absently. With a single sock-covered toe, she gently nudges the bow out from under her couch, once again admiring Gale's clever craftmanship. If anyone could make a bow from scratch without having to be taught how to do it, it would be Gale.

And he had done it for her.

She bites the side of her lip.

"I'll be back," she says.

It's lighter outside than she had thought it would be, but completely still as curfew rolls closer. Most of the homes have their curtains drawn, and dancing light at the seams of the windows reveals lit candles inside. Her eye wanders as she slips between the shadows, catching on boots left out on the front porch and smoke rising from chimneys.

It doesn't take her long.

The sound of her boots on the Hawthornes' wooden porch is so loud she pauses on the first step.

She is uncertain.

She must not be uncertain in front of Gale.

A deep breathe, and she continues. Her knuckles rap against the door. He answers immediately and she wonders if he had known she was outside. It wouldn't be out of the question. His ears are uncannily sensitive.

A crack of light falls across her face, which she schools into the most neutral expression she can.

"Katniss. Why are you here?"

Words won't be right now. Instead, she pulls out the lump of rags in her pocket and peels the edge back until a bit of yellow peeks out.

"Shit Katniss!" Gale hisses, "don't do that on my porch!"

He drags her inside, cursing vehemently under his breath.

"What the hell were you thinking!" he snaps. "Anyone could have-"

"Relax. No one saw."

Katniss pulls out her knife and flips it open. Gale's dark eyes follow the slip of metal in her hand.

"How did you get that?! Actually, never mind, I don't even want to-"

She let's the rags fall away from the lemon, and with a few smooth pulls of her hand, slices the lemon in half.

"Here," she mumbles, shoving it under his nose.

Gale's nostrils flare and his jaw clenches.

"Katniss. I can't accept this."

"I didn't get it from Peeta," she says. "Its mine. And- and I want you to have it."

She wishes she knew what he was thinking. There was a time when she would have. The events between that time and now, however, are impossible to deny.

She thinks of Gale in his kitchen, their hands interlocked over the table. She thinks of Gale as she knew him in the forest. The only place he ever smiled.

She thinks of the bonds that drew them together. Pain. Anger. Desperation. And then she knows why the gulf between herself and Gale has happened.

Every hurt, every crippling moment of sorrow, every moment of despondency- they knew it all of each other.

But that was all they knew of each other.

She didn't know what Gale wanted from his life. Obviously he had wanted her and even though she had lived with him, she hadn't known. What else did he want? Marriage? Children?

She didn't want either of those things. Had made that plain to Gale. There would have been no way for him to misconstrue her feelings on this. He had simply disregarded them. And that was a side to him she had never known.

She didn't want love. But even if she did, she wouldn't want Gale's.

Gale was like fire. He would consume anything and everything without a thought to the consequences. And she does not trust him to leave her unscorched.

"Why are you doing this?" he says. "A single lemon is barely enough for you and Prim."

The why matters too much to Gale. It always has. He is looking for something from her that she cannot give him and she needs to make that plain.

She presses half the fruit into his hands. It is impossible to look into his face. She focuses on the rough skin of the fruit under her fingers instead.

Waxy. Bumpy. Warm.

"Because you're family."

She curls a hand around his, closing his long fingers around the fruit. His rough swallow is audible.

He is angry. He is hurt. He will argue. Throw her offering back in her face.

If she is going to lose Gale, it will happen now.

"I'm sorry," she blurts out. She doesn't know why she says it. It tastes like a lie, but feels like the truth.

Gale is quiet, his face bitter. And then, it softens and he says-

"Yeah. I know."

The words sit dead and heavy in the air, stagnating too long. Gale's eyes are locked on his hands. There's nothing else to say. Her footsteps echo as she leaves.

* * *

February melts away. The grayish snow that has been hard-packed onto the streets since November loosens and chips as the sun grows brighter and the days longer. It has been a snowy winter, one of the snowiest she can remember, and Katniss finds herself looking forward to spring. There is still one month of cold left, but already, she can sense a shift in the air.

But that's not why tension around the District is rising. The riot at the train station triggers a string of events that has everyone walking on eggshells. There is a robbery at the Distribution Center. One of the peacekeepers' vehicles is set on fire one night and the next morning at school two upperclassmen boys are absent. They never return.

It all culminates in a panic outside the Town Hall, where an older woman speaking incoherently grabs the front of a peacekeepers uniform and jerks. Katniss can see that the woman is not quite right, but if the Peacekeeper sees that too, he does not care. His night stick snaps open and he brings it down on the woman's head. Katniss is on her way to the bakery after school, and in the ensuing panic in the packed square, she is trapped in the doldrums of one of her headaches. People mill around her, but she is so overwhelmed by the activity that she stands staring at the older woman in shock as she collapses bonelessly to the ground. Spasms wrack her body and dark blood trails down her face, but Katniss can't stop looking at her hands- spotted pink and swollen, the very tips a black-purple that burns itself into her mind.

The image of those hands haunt her as she finally manages to tear herself away and escape the crowd. She is light-headed and shaking when she reaches the bakery, and without a single word, Peeta locks up and leads her home. The sequence of events between the bakery and her home are a throbbing blur. She's unfocused and quiet, unable to keep her mind on any one thing. It jumps around, but always lands back on the older woman from the square.

At home, she curls up in her bed. Closes her eyes. Tries to ignore the pounding in her head.

She sleeps for what feels like hours, but is really probably only one or two, before-

"Easy, easy. Hey. Its ok."

Gasping, she sits up. It is early evening. The sky is a murky indigo that colors everything in the room the same shade of charcoal black. Peeta's hand is burning against the chilled skin of her shoulder and she's coated in sweat despite the open window. His voice is what dragged her out from her dream, tugging her toward the surface of her wakefulness. She had been drowning, but couldn't remember if it had been smoke or water that had filled her lungs.

Maybe both.

"It was Prim," she says, "I couldn't find her. She was screaming and I-"

"It was a dream," he says. "Prim is safe."

From outside, Katniss can hear a faint, melodic strumming.

"See for yourself. They're on the back porch," Peeta says.

Katniss wanders out of her room and toward the kitchen. Peeta brushes by her.

"Tea?"

She nods absently and treads toward the back window.

She needs to see Prim. Just to be sure.

She peers out of the window onto the back porch, where Rory and Prim have lit a candle and set it between them. The light dances on their faces and throws their profiles out in shadow into the yard. Rory is plucking at an out of tune fiddle that had once belonged to his father and grinning playfully at Prim. He strums a few of the strings experimentally and laughs when Prim says something she cannot hear.

The candle sputters and their shadows dance. The scar on Prim's face stands out dark against her pale skin, and she keeps tilting that side of her face away from Rory. As if she were ashamed of the scar. Katniss had never seen her do this before, but her heart aches painfully for her younger sister.

Rory is staring at her. The instrument clatters to the floor. Prim tries to duck her head away, eyes glittering ominously and muttering something Katniss wishes she could hear, but one of Rory's large, gentle hands catch her face. His thumb traces her scar, but his eyes are soft.

He says something and both of them freeze.

And then he leans forward and presses his lips to Prim's.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy cow, this is late! And, also, was incredibly difficult to get just right. Huge thanks to my beta Opaque, who was an amazing help and had some really brilliant ideas for this chapter!
> 
> I also want to thank everyone who's supposted me over the past couple of weeks with RD, whether it was a review here or a message on Tumblr. You guys are just unbelievable, and I feel so lucky to be a part of a fandom with so many lovely, supportive people. If you have questions
> 
> So, the next and final chapters of Running Dry are all set to deal with another huge disaster. All the clues are there for anyone who wants play Sherlock Holmes and put the pieces together. Me and my beta have been at this final arc pretty much since RD started, and seeing it come to life is kind of like Christmas morning for me. ;)
> 
> Until next week! ~


	15. Evens and Odds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm sorry. It's not right, like this. Here. Now. But I wouldn't forgive myself if you never knew."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy Trigger Warning for Graphic Violence and Gore. If these things make you uncomfortable, please read this chapter with care. If you feel you may be triggered by this content but still wish to read this chapter, contact me directly either here or on tumblr, I will send you an edited version of the chapter safe for you to read.

 

_**xv.** _

"Katniss? What are you doing?"

Her cheek is flat against the stainless steel of the bakery store front's counter. With her eyes closed, her world is reduced to the coolness of the metal against her hot skin and the insistent pounding in her head.

The day had been an unfocused blur punctuated by prickling white light. Class. Lunch. Delly saying… something she didn't remember. More class. Thistle not-so-gently prodding her to talk after school. And now, somehow, she's here, standing with her eyes screwed shut and her head flat against the counter. Even though the weird position is awkward for her back, it still feels heavenly to put her head down.

"The light," she groans. "Its too bright."

"Do you want to lie down?" he says.

"I'm fine," she snaps, whipping her head up and rubbing her eyes.

Peeta reddens.

"You can't stay here like this."

The room spins lazily around her. Getting up that quickly had been a mistake. She squeezes her temples between her fingers and moves them in slow circles. The scar on her temple from her fall feels smooth and hard.

"I said I was fine."

Even if she isn't, she is only part of the way through her shift. It's three thirty. The bakery doesn't close until six and she isn't going to let Peeta close alone. It would take twice as long for him finish, and he was already overpaying her for what she did. Admittedly, there wasn't much to do. With all the baking supplies and the kitchen completely out of commision, there was neither anything to prepare, nor much to clean. The entire bakery is stocked only with the 'Emergency Ration' bread (which had yet to rot), and there was not much in terms of cleaning that Peeta had left undone.

More often than not, when the doors shut at the end of the night, the day was well and truly over. Which meant Peeta had more time to spend with Delly and Thistle, much to her chagrin. He insisted on dragging her along to Thistle's house often, though she'd much rather it just be the two of them hanging out in his studio. Those nights were her favorite.

As the weather warmed in mid-March and the frigid Spring rains came, he would throw open the window in his studio and paint while she napped in his down quilt. There was one day when she walked in and it was already waiting for her on the floor, and he laughed when she dove right for it.

"You only keep me around for my blanket, Everdeen," he joked.

She had only shrugged and said.

"Its your best asset."

She groans out loud. It would be amazing to wrap herself in that blanket now. To curl up on his soft bed.

Peeta mistakes the sound she makes for pain.

"This is ridiculous. You know I don't need your help to close tonight. I'm literally going to close the door and that'll be it."

But she's past the point of needing convincing anyway. He shoos her away upstairs, promising to pay her anyway, and her fantasy of a nap comes blissfully true.

Come six o'clock, he's rousing her with her jacket slung over his arm. She tugs her boots on groggily, shoulders her pack, and trudges into the night with Peeta by her side.

Outside, the first notes of spring are apparent. The air is warmer, though it still holds a chill, and the snow has melted away. The rains and melting snow have washed the roads clear and have even rinsed the soot off the white peacekeeper vehicles, which still circle the district lazily like scavenging birds over carrion.

She shivers and tucks herself under Peeta's arm. Just in case.

The house is dark by the time she gets there.

"Where's Prim?" asks Peeta worriedly, glancing around her kitchen.

Katniss shrugs.

Prim has probably gone to bed early. She notes the emptiness of the kitchen without Prim there, and feels something cavernous open up inside her. She drops her back on the table and it lands with a hollow flump.

Peeta purses his lips.

"Is she ok?" he asks.

"She's fine," Katniss grumbles, her cheeks flaming. How could she explain to him what she had seen, when she wasn't even sure of it herself? Yes, they had kissed. But she didn't know what Prim wanted. What Rory wanted.

So she had brought it up with Prim, who hadn't been very happy about what Katniss had to say. But then, neither is Katniss. She is terrified for her sister. What is she thinking? They had very nearly lost Rory already. How she could kiss him, after watching him nearly die, escaped her entirely. Connections like that only meant future pain. This is not an assumption, it is a fact. Everyone left, in the end. Some endings came faster than others, but they all came eventually.

She is powerless to protect Prim again. Like she had been after their father died. This is one area where she can't keep Prim safe. Because food, shelter and clothing are all things she can harness with her bow, but safety from heartbreak is an entirely different problem. One she is convinced is unsolvable.

Her nightmares have gotten worse since then.

After Peeta leaves, she curls up on the couch and throws the ragged quilt over herself. Scattered along the floor are the squares for the quilt they had been making. They haven't worked on it in a while.

Prim hasn't been home.

She picks one up off the floor. Curls it in her hand.

How many did they have left to do?

She sits up and grids them in her mind, surprised that there is so little left to do.

She picks up the needles. It feels good to have them in her hands again.

Sometime later, she joins Prim in bed, throwing the new quilt over both of them. She curls into her sister's bony back and closes her eyes. Prim is breathing deeply and evenly, totally unaware of the source of the added warm on top of her, but she sighs sweetly anyway.

In the morning, Katniss wakes to Prim squealing in happiness. Her sister lands on top of her heavily, squeezing her with all her strength.

"You finished it!" she cries. "It looks so nice, Katniss! I can't believe you figured out how to stitch all the squares together!"

Katniss' eyes pop open and she grins broadly.

"I learned it from watching you, silly," she says.

Prim proclaims it the warmest quilt of all time. And the most colorful, too.

Katniss can't stop smiling.

* * *

"What was the number again?"

Peeta frowns, unfurling the scrap of paper in his pocket for the thousandth time and squinting at the chicken scratch address written there. They're delivering 'laundry' again and somehow had gotten lost trying to find an address.

"It says fifteen. But that five could be another number. Maybe a 3?"

"That doesn't make any sense," says Katniss under her breath.

Its the third time they've been up and down this street looking for number 15, which may actually be 13, and Katniss is starting to believe the address is fake. Only, why would someone do that? What could they possibly stand to gain from paying up front for alcohol they never got to drink?

It wasn't like it was cheap.

Peeta adjusts the basket of "laundry" at his hip, the light tinkle of glass barely audible in the stillness of approaching dusk. They didn't have much time before curfew.

"Let me see," she says, and Peeta hands over the scrap. She holds it up to her face, trying to pick apart the the individual characters in the scrawl.

"Wait a minute," Peeta says. She looks up from the paper.

"What?"

"This can't be right. Katniss. There is no number fifteen. There's no odd numbered houses at all."

Katniss glances surreptitiously around the darkening street. The reflective, black vinyl numbers that peek out of the doorways are just barely visible. She counts them. Peeta is right. How hadn't she noticed?

"Oh," she mutters. "We're in the Evens. Wrong part of town."

"The Evens?"

"I don't know the whole story," she says quickly. "For whatever reason, this street only has even numbers. Its always been that way."

Peeta stops and looks at her skeptically.

"Well, that's where we are. The proof is all around you."

He twists his head around.

"Don't do that," she hisses in exasperation.

"What?"

"Look around like you've never been here before. Even for the Seam, this is not a good place to be. Can't you see it? Half of these houses don't even have windows!"

And they don't. Most the houses have roofs made out of sheets of corrugated metal and the windows had long since been boarded up with scrap wood, probably salvaged from construction sites in the mines. Trash littered the street- but nothing worth scavenging. Junk bits of rusted metal. Sharp bits of broken glass. Piles of old papers that have molded together into solid lumps over time. The carcass of a dead rat.

"It doesn't matter," she sighs. "You stick out like a sore thumb anyway. We have to go."

She turns around to head back in the direction from which they came when two peacekeepers emerge from a house. They are talking quietly amongst themselves, oblivious to their presence, but she knows that won't last for long. She grabs his wrist and yanks him into a shadowed doorway, her pulse quickening as the taller peacekeeper seems to sense their movement and whips his head around.

She barely dares to breathe.

His head turns left, then right, and then he stills entirely. He knows. His hands reaches up toward his helmet, and he yanks it off, twisting his head all the way around. Katniss has to bite her lip to keep herself from saying anything to Peeta, because she recognizes the Peacekeeper. Its the one that gave her the lemon.

His smaller companion is turning around too. Then, she says something very quietly, and the door opens again, and Gale emerges from the same house. He pauses when he sees them, then, gracefully, nods at them and melts away into the shadows of the street.

"Was that Gale?," Peeta asks, barely audible.

She nods slowly, pursing her lips.

The peacekeepers seem satisfied that whatever they heard is gone, and they follow in Gale's footsteps, taking long, purposeful strides.

For all the world, you would never know they all emerged from the same place.

"That peacekeeper… does he look familiar to you?" Peeta says, as they step out of the shadows. He had, but in all likelihood not for the reason that he looked familiar to Peeta. The peacekeeper who had given her the lemon hadn't seemed at all like a peacekeeper. At least, not the ones she had come to expect the Capitol to send. His long hair certainly wasn't something she had ever seen on a Peacekeeper before, and he had met her eyes, something most enforcement from the Capitol rarely did.

She starts. What if the lemon he had given her was not just a lemon? What if it had been a message?

In one fell swoop, he had revealed to her where he was from, District Four, and by extension, that he wasn't really a peacekeeper. As soon as she makes the connection, it solidifies in her mind as the truth. Its the only possible explanation for his actions. He had been trying to tell her that he wasn't sent by the Capitol at all. But then, who was he? Just a man from Four?

Or a rebel spy?

Was there a rebellion in Four as well?

Katniss sneaks her head out around the side of the house and watches the street anxiously.

The same door is thrown open, and out walks a large man, his face obscured entirely by coal dust. He too walks into the street and disappears.

Suddenly it dawns on her that she knows who these people are, and what they're doing. And if she's right, they couldn't afford to be seen anywhere near them. Katniss pulls Peeta back into the shadows.

"Peeta," she whispers. "These people. They're the rebellion."

His eyes widen as a staccato burst of gunfire opens up on the other side of the street. Peeta drops the basket and pushes her into the corner of the porch, shielding her from the street with his body. Panicked voices echo. Someone is screaming.

"We have to get out of here," she says urgently. There is something in the pulsing in the air. Something wild and violent. She can feel the rising tension like she can feel the flutter of Peeta's heartbeat through his skin. This is just the beginning.

"Peeta- We can't stay here!"

"We can't run now! We'll get shot!"

The large man with the coal covered face from before runs past them down the dark street. A peacekeeper follows close behind before stopping and raising his arm. Katniss sucks in a ragged breath of disbelief as he squeezes the trigger and a burst of light and gunfire erupts from his gun. A heavy thump tells her he didn't miss his target. Peeta presses the palm of his hand against her mouth as a horrified scream rips itself from her throat.

He is whispering something softly to her, but she can't hear it over the roar of the gunfire that echoes over and over in her head. She throws herself against him, her hands pushing against his chest roughly.

"Let me go!" she screams against his palm.

A group of men run by with cloth tied over their faces. They are screaming too. The whole world is screaming. One turns around, something clutched tightly in his hand. Its a white liquor bottle. Not one of hers- its something from the Capitol. He raises it up, and then there is a burst of light.

It's fire. The bottle is on fire.

He leans back, his arm extended behind him as Peacekeepers thunder towards him, their guns blasting into the crowd. Someone to the left of him falls and he lets the bottle fly as a bullet rips through his head, blasting gore onto the street behind him.

The bottle streaks through the air, then explodes in a thunderous flash on the hard packed dirt path, and her world zeroes out.

There's a ringing in her ears the overlays everything else. Peeta's mouth is moving. Nothing is coming out. She can see the flash of the muzzle of a gun. No sound.

Her heart thumps. Her breath stops. Her fingers close around Peeta's arms.

'No,' she thinks, 'No no no-'

Her eyes lock with his. In their depths she can see horror. Panic. Disbelief. She thinks he might know what's happening.

The world turns the same shade of blue as his eyes. Fades to dark. Then black.

* * *

Something wet is dripping down her cheeks. Someone is crying quietly.

"Thirsty," she mumbles, her mouth dry and her voice cracking.

"Oh god, Katniss?!"

Warmth leaves her suddenly. Her eyes flutter open. Peeta is sitting up next to her, and wipes his cheek with the heel of his palm. His eyes sweep over her face, and she wonders where they are. He tugs her forward into his chest and holds her with shaking arms. His breath falls hot and rushed against her neck.

"Can I have some water?"

He pulls back again, wiping his other cheek.

"Not right now, but I promise you'll have some as soon as we're out of here."

What did he mean?

"Here?"

"We're in the Evens. Do you remember coming here?"

"I don't. Peeta, what's going on?"

A series of loud pops cause her to whip her head around. They are huddled in the back of a frigid, dirty room. The window above their heads is completely open the elements, but Peeta has somehow located a sheet and has draped it over them. They are in one of the abandoned homes in the Evens.

"We have to go!" she says, struggling to stand.

"Don't!" he cries, "You have to stay down!"

He pulls her back to the floor.

"There's fighting outside! Stray bullets are flying everywhere! Please Katniss. Stay down. We'll leave soon, I promise."

The tone in his voice is so desperate and terrified that she lets him gather her against his chest, and run his hands over the back of her head.

"I thought you were shot," he exhales weakly. "I thought it was a bullet. How sick is it that I was relieved that it was just a seizure?"

It's Peeta's brand of humor, but he's not laughing. She curls her fingers into his shirt as fear creeps through her veins. She had had another one.

"I don't remember," she says shakily. "I don't remember anything after filling the laundry basket."

"It's not worth remembering," he says. Even as he does, bits and pieces of the time before now begin to congeal together. The Evens. The lemon Peacekeeper. Gale. The gunfire.

Screams begin anew outside. There is someone wailing in a pitch so high that it could only be a child. She buries her face in Peeta's shoulder and her breath quivers as it escapes her. She is clutching him so tightly she can no longer feel her fingers and tries not to imagine what the street outside looks like. Tries not to picture the child.

But the image is there anyway, crowding her mind like the flashes of violence she could remember from earlier. She is suddenly breathing fast and hard, unable to get enough air.

"I want to go home," she sobs.

"I know. I do too. Just close your eyes. We'll be there soon."

His arms curl around her as the world falls apart outside the four walls of the room that keeps them hidden. She's exhausted and slips in and out of sleep, but she knows Peeta stays awake throughout the night.

Sometime nearing dawn, the fighting dies down. Peeta brushes the hair from her face and brings her slowly to wakefulness with quiet murmurs. Soft light breaks through the window overhead and falls over them, wispy and airy as cattail fluff.

"I think its over," he says.

"Should we leave now?"

Peeta hesitates to answer.

"Let's wait another hour. Just in case."

"Ok."

She drowses against him, listening to the miraculous, heavy thud of his heart. They have survived. A smile tugs on her lips. They're going home. Soon.

Peeta shifts, and his heart rate picks up.

"Katniss... I need to tell you something."

He sits up and runs his hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry. It's not right, like this. Here. Now. But I wouldn't forgive myself if you never knew."

Peeta is worried something else will happen. That the fighting may not be over. Worried of what they'd find outside the room when they finally start their trek home. She needs to know whatever it is he's trying to say. Desperately.

He lowers his eyes, and his lashes fall against his cheek. His voice is rough as he says the words that brand themselves into her memory. She will always remember the shape his mouth takes as he speaks them. The whisper-blue shadows under his eyes. The tremble in his hands.

And her silent paralysis after they're said.

* * *

When they leave the house, he won't look at her. The morning air is traitorously soft and warm after the violence of the night, tugging at the loose curls that escape her braid and brush against her neck. But she's numb to it all.

Peeta loves her, and the world is ending. Nothing banal like the tickle of her hair against her skin would ever feel the same as it had before.

She tries to avert her eyes from the bodies in the street. Keep them on her shoes. On the skyline. But she nearly trips over one of them and her gaze falls on its blackened, shriveled fingertips as if magnetized there. It's arms, dotted with raised pink splotches. Without meaning to, she lets her eyes drift to another.

Same darkened hands. Same blotchy skin.

Is this how human bodies die? That couldn't be right. The first person she had seen with these symptoms had been living. Though she could not confirm if she still was.

Cold dread washes over her. She had heard of this somewhere before- illness so virile it swept through entire populations, killing off everyone it touched. Especially the very young, and the very old. The symptoms, swollen lumps in the neck and armpits, dark purple spots on the skin, dry cough, body aches, immediately visible as the sick lay dying in the street.

She shivers, her eyes darting from body to body. Some normal. Some infected. Counting quickly, she estimates the infection rate at somewhere just above thirty percent.

"Peeta- your shirt!," she says, yanking the neck of her shirt over her nose and mouth. "We have to get out of here!"

"What's-"

"Look around you! Look at these bodies! These people are sick!"

Peeta pales and follows her lead, covering his face with his shirt. Stumbling and gasping, they race out of the maze of bodies in the Evens and toward her house, their footfalls sounding loudly in the empty morning air. Every strike of her heel against the ground is a drumbeat of questions that aren't answerable. And there's no time.

Because she has not seen her sister since yesterday morning and she has no idea how far the riots spread into the Seam, but from the looks of the smoldering, bullet riddled streets she and Peeta are running through, the riots have reached her house.

Prim- hurt, dead. It was unthinkable. She had see her. Had to know she was ok.

But when they get to her house it's empty- the door swung wide open and one of the windows shattered. She and Peeta burst inside, and she feels her heart stop. No one is there.

"Prim! PRIM!"

She bolts from room to room, but there is no sign of Prim.

Had Prim gone looking for her? A rattling, guttural sound that starts deep in the bottom of her stomach works its way out of her mouth. Prim. Searching for her in the riot.

"PRIM!," she screams again. Even though she knows Prim can't hear her. Her voices echoes hollowly in the empty house.

"There's a note!" Peeta yells suddenly, "Prim is with Gale!"

Her knees crack on the floor. Her head falls between them as she slumps over, her fists pressed into the worn wood underneath her. Prim was safe with Gale. He would never have let anything happen to her.

'Up,' she thinks, 'get up.'

She takes a moment. Just one. Breathes deeply. Then she is on her feet.

"Gale's," she says to Peeta as she rushes out the door.

When they arrive on his doorstep, definitely worse for wear, Gale knows without her having to say anything to stand aside and let her in. Prim is asleep on the couch, her cheeks tear-stained and sticky. Katniss doesn't care if she's sleeping. She crawls next to her and pulls her into her arms, tears flowing down her own cheeks.

"Katniss you're squishing me," Prim moans sleepily, and Katniss laughs, holding her closer.

"You scared me, duck," she whispers.

"You scared me too," she says, and rubs her eyes.

They go home. Everything is closed and no one has anywhere to be but home. Sunday, blessed Sunday. Peeta tries to leave them, claiming his need for a shower. He's quiet and avoiding her eyes still. She makes him stay. Prim babbles to him happily about the new quilt, even drags it out to show him, and though he is as gracious as ever she can see that he is fading.

When Prim settles herself with more knitting in bed, Katniss drags Peeta to her couch. He still wants to leave. She pulls him to her as she lays down on the narrow cushions of the couch, feeling his raging pulse through his chest. Guilt and giddy relief stir together in a wash of exhaustion. She needs him here. Needs the steadiness he provides.

She is selfish. She is cruel.

"Don't go," she says.

He shakes his head slightly.

"I won't."

He fiddles with her hair as the sky opens up and rain lashes against the house.

"What are we going to do?" she whispers. As if he had an answer.

"We try to live," he says. Thunder rolls softly and she jumps, quivering in her arms. It sounds like the guns. Like the bomb. He stills, his arms tightening around her.

"I can't lose you," he says, his hand coming up to cup her cheek. Warm. Solid. She freezes, her breath barely escaping. "You don't know what it was like. Watching you- when you-"

He swallows and shakes his head, as though he would cut his tongue on the whatever he said next. Her heart beats desperately against her ribs. Because it is cruel that she can't tell him what he wants to hear. That he would never lose her. She wants to tell him that. She does. But it would be a lie and they would both know it. They had to be realistic about their odds. Only then did they stand any chance of survival.

The District was uprising. The rebellion had started. Half of the Seam had been blown to pieces, and without the proper medicine, the other half would soon be dead.

There must be pain on her face because its suddenly reflected on his too. Her eyes are welling. She didn't want to die. Would try her best not to. But she couldn't promise him that she wouldn't.

And that's when she knows. The odds are in no one's favor, but especially not theirs.

She should say something to sooth him, but the words won't come. None do at all.

So instead she slides her hand along the side of his jaw and tilts his face gently towards hers, and kisses him.

Soft. Just her lips against his. He goes stiff in shock. Unmoving but breathing quickly, his eyes wide. Air falls gently along her cheeks. She starts to pulls away when his mouth moves, finally, against hers.

'Please…'

His lips form the word, but no sound escapes. What he is asking for she does not know. And then his hand catches her face and their mouths meet again. This time- fevered. His soft blue eyes are moony, then gone under his lids. Her hands tangle in his hair, and she marvels at the warmth of him.

Her universe contracts to the very hair's breadth that separates her nose from his cheek, and, without thinking, she closes the space, drawing him closer until she is aware of only the places where they touch and nothing else.

How long they stay like that she doesn't know. But she does know she's not ready when it's over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit that was intense. I think I'm earning my 'M' rating here for sure. 
> 
> Huge thank you to my lovely beta, who yet again managed to turn the chapter around in just a few hours. She's the best you guys, for real.
> 
> And thank you readers and reviewers! I'm so glad you've stuck around! :)
> 
> I'll be traveling for the next few weeks, and I'm going to try to stick to my Friday schedule, but if anything changes, I will make sure theres an alert on my Tumblr.
> 
> Until next time~


	16. Five Minutes to Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But as she remembers it- the heat of him, his body unbelievably solid against her, the way she had felt both wildly out of control and perfectly safe all at once- she understands that if there is a way for a kiss to mean nothing, she doesn't know it and she doesn't want to. And she would never want to know the person who would kiss Peeta and not mean it.

_**xvi.** _

* * *

Someone has a death wish, and they're tapping insistently on her bedroom window.

She's not overly worried. The riots had been a flash in the pan: over almost as soon as they had started. Since then, the violence has dropped off entirely. No one feels safe outside in the open with an illness creeping its way through the District. The streets are barren, save the few brave souls who hurry by, clothes `zaround their noses and mouths. Those already affected by the illness are sequestered to their homes, by order of Commander Thread. The Evens are blocked off entirely, and a truck parked at either end of the street hides it from view. Keeping the rest of the population out, or keeping people from the Evens trapped inside.

Either way, she is both unnerved and relieved by the quarantine of the Evens. Though she had been there during the start of the outbreak, and she has yet to get sick (to her delirious relief), the illness could still spread to their part of the Seam. Could still spread to the Hawthorne's. To the Merchant Quarter.

It has already made its way to three other streets in the Seam, jumping across the District to hit the southern and northern eastern sections of the Seam concurrently. While it isn't spreading as quickly as previous years' flus had, Katniss is still worried. Because there don't seem to be many survivors.

Prim, of course, has taken an interest in tracking its progress, and will tell anyone who will listen where she thinks it's headed next. She hasn't been right yet, but it hasn't deterred her. She's doggedly pursuing whatever books her mother left behind, searching for clues to what this disease could be and how to cure it.

Its no use though, because the illness is like nothing they've ever seen before. Except for Prim's revelation that most of those affected are among the poorest in the District, they don't know much else about it.

So Katniss isn't worried about the tapping on her window, because whoever it is, they are either too stupid to break their way in or they are someone she knows. Either way, she's content to ignore them until they go away. She huffs, turns over, and closes her eyes. Its not even dawn yet.

The tapping continues, however, and no amount of ignoring it makes it any quieter so can she get back to sleep.

Finally fed up, she swings her legs over the side of the bed and roughly yanks her sweater on. Though it is still dark outside, the dead stillness of night has faded, and she can hear the first stirrings of morning- the light rustling of birds in the trees and the flap of their wings as they leave in search of their first meal.

Throwing open the window, she finds Rory fidgeting nervously.

"What are you doing?!" she hisses, "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Can I come in please?" he says, his eyes sliding left and right anxiously, "Please Katniss?"

She slams the window shut with a gust of cold air and tugs on a pair of socks. Rory has some nerve. If he thinks she is waking up Prim for him, he has another thing coming.

With a frigid glare, she cracks the front door open and pulls him inside.

"Where the hell is your head at?" she barks.

Rory's answering grin is shy, but self satisfied and gives her the distinct impression he's been up to something his brother wouldn't approve of.

"Do you have any idea how stupid it is to wander around after curfew, Rory Hawthorne?"

After all the time and energy so many people had spent keeping Rory alive, he had risked his life all over again. He rubs the back of his neck and drops his overstuffed hunting bag on the table. She hadn't even seen that he had been carrying it. But now that she does, her eyes go wide.

"You  _cannot_  be serious," she says.

No wonder he's so pleased with himself. A stuffed game bag is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a fifteen year old boy and novice hunter like Rory. He must have left yesterday afternoon, hunted all evening and spent the night in the woods. What excuse had he given Gale? Stupid, stupid boy.

"Dead serious," he says, "and there's plenty to go around."

He rips open his bag and pulls out a few squirrels. As it is the tail end of a brutal winter, they're scrawny, but its still the first meat Katniss has seen in a long time. After Rory was whipped, Gale's hauls had gotten considerably smaller. He had spared what he could to trade with Katniss for bread, but that had all but ended two weeks ago.

"I can't accept these. You could have gotten yourself killed."

Rory shrugs and doesn't meet her angry stare.

"Right. But I didn't."

Katniss massages the bridge of her nose.

"That's not the point. People have worked very hard to keep you alive."

Rory shakes his head minutely, withdrawing a leather satchel from his pocket and plopping it on the table. The heavy, woody scent scent that tickles her nose gives it away as willowbark. And a lot of it.

"I'm not taking anything for granted. But I have debts to repay. And promises to keep. Starting with you and Prim."

There's a rough squeeze in her chest. He sounds so much like she had at his age. Even at fifteen, she had hated feeling indebted to anyone and Rory was following right in the heavy trail of footsteps she and Gale had left behind.

"Prim up yet?," he asks, as he roots around deeper in his bag, "I have something special."

"Not yet. And don't you dare ask me to wake her."

"No. No. I don't want to do that. Is it okay if I wait around until she is?"

He pulls his hand out of his bag, gently clutching three brown speckled eggs.

Her mouth drops open in shock. This early in the spring its rare to find nests, let alone eggs. How Rory managed to get his hands on some is a miracle.

Or maybe it isn't. Even Gale himself had been surprised by Rory's uncanny ability for tracking. The way he described it, Rory picking up on things that any other hunter would have overlooked, seemed at first to be beginners luck. Over time, however, it had become obvious that Rory had been hiding a sharp tracker's eye. She'd love to watch him work sometime, if only to see for herself what Gale had.

If anyone could find the first, and maybe only eggs yet this season, it would be Gale's prodigy of a younger brother.

But she wished she could decide if she was more angry at him or proud.

"Your brother would have my skin if he knew about this," she bites, raking her hand through her loose hair. She takes them from him anyway, and sets them out on the counter in a bowl. They're warm to the touch despite the chill outside, and they feel heavy and rough in her hands.

Of all the things she's missed this winter, eggs are at the top. If it were later in the season, she'd be able to scrounge up some crisp wild onions or spicy young chickweed to go with them. Maybe even pick up a small bag of black peppercorns and to grind and put on top.

Or find some cream to mix in and make them rich and fluffy like the pastries at the bakery.

Her mouth waters. Its a beautiful, bitter dream. Since the riot, food in the District has dwindled to whatever rations the Capitol sends to the Distribution center, and bread from the bakery. Neither of those options are particularly enticing. No wonder she's fantasizing about luxuries like black pepper.

Now tired  _and_  hungry, she rubs her eyes.

As much as she doesn't want to admit it, Rory has saved their hides. Neither she nor Prim had had any protein in a week, and she had been about to tug on her boots herself and haul back what she could before Prim noticed she was missing. Not that she wanted to. If she collapsed in the woods, there was a good chance no one would find her. Not even Gale.

Rory coughs, thrusting his arm forward awkwardly. Clutched in his fist is a bouquet of colorful wildflowers.

"Anything for these?" he mumbles, his face red to the tips of his ears.

Katniss keeps her expression carefully blank as she retrieves a chipped mug from the cupboard and fills it with water. Rory sets the flowers in it, then puts it in the center of the table.

"She said she missed flowers," Rory mumbles, staring down at his hands as he re-ties his bag. "That it didn't really feel like spring until they were here. I thought, with everything that's happening, she should have a reason to smile, even if its just…"

He clears his throat.

"Sorry. I don't know why I told  _you_  that. It was weird."

"Its ok," Katniss says, but she frowns as she busies herself at the sink refilling the kettle. She squints down at the frothing water as it swirls in the black belly of the cast iron kettle. "You can stay until she's up. But I'm not lying to Gale for you. You're on your own with-"

A loud, sharp sound, like a note of music, fills the house and Katniss whirls around, water sloshing down the old button up shirt that belonged to her father but now serves as her nightgown. The television on the other side of the couch flickers blue and white, a single beam erupting out of the broadcasting box set on the mantle. It rises slowly, the sound blaring as it does. As the beam reaches its full height and starts to spread horizontally, the sound shifts notes and it becomes obvious that it is the national anthem, rising in volume until she and Rory have their hands capped over their ears.

Then the screen flickers to life to show President Snow at a clean white desk, one of his hands resting on the smooth polished wood, the other on top of that. His face is placid, his eyes blank, but his lips are fleshy and red. They disturb her, though she can't put her finger on exactly why. Their size, maybe. They look swollen, as if he had been stung there by bees. A shiver makes its way down her spine, but she can't tear her eyes from the puffed flesh.

"It is the dawn of another new day in Panem," he starts, his voice authoritative and even. "In every District, loyal citizens are rising to do their part in the great and beautiful machine that is our country, and they're doing so because they believe that a united Panem is a strong Panem. Our nation's history is rich and long, and it's from that history that we know that only through unity and sacrifice can we truly prosper. For that reason we hold the Hunger Games, which are not only an opportunity for each District to shine in front of the entire nation, but, more importantly, prove their loyalty and integrity, to one another and to the Capitol. In that spirit, I know you'll be joining me in celebrating the upcoming 74th Hunger Games. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

The floor tilts under her feet. She hadn't forgotten the Reaping. It would be impossible to- so much of her life was planned around it. But somehow, it drifted in importance with everything that had come to pass in the last year. It is Prim's first Reaping. She hasn't forgotten that either, but still it had escaped her that it would be so soon. Maybe she had assumed it wouldn't happen with how badly off the District had become. But they had never stopped it before, not for anything.

Of course it would continue this year.

The broadcast box sputters, the image of President Snow wavering, before it flickers off. Then its silence. Rory's downturned gaze rises slowly to meet hers, and she's not even sure he is breathing.

He clears his throat and opens his mouth to say something, but before he can there's a quiet hiccup from behind them in the kitchen. Prim is standing by the table, barefoot, with one foot tucked under the other.

The way she used to stand when she was just a little kid and forgot her socks on winter mornings, too eager to get to breakfast.

Too hungry. Too cold.

There's a moment of silence that stretches uncomfortably where no one says anything, but they all think the same thing. Prim is the only one who says it out.

"What if it's me?" she croaks.

Katniss' heart seizes in her chest and she enfolds her sister in her arms. She refuses to even consider it. It won't be. It can't.

And anyway, she thinks later, as she wraps cloth mask over her face and makes her way to work, there are so many others with entries in the upper double digits. Prim really had no reason to worry about her measly slip. Katniss herself had close to fifty.

The houses she passes on her way through the Seam and into the merchant quarter have their windows shuttered and are still and dark. The air is warm for spring, but too quiet. Eerily so. She averts her eyes quickly when a glance into the shadows of a porch reveal a sheet wrapped body.

Her throat works to swallow, but her tongue is too fat and dry. With her eyes refocused on the dark rust of the dirt and rocks under her boots, she allows herself, just for a moment, to think about her own entries.

She and Gale had worked hard to keep Rory and Prim from taking a tesserae, but they have both paid a heavy price. Her odds are poor. Gale's are poorer. But at least they're not the poorest.

There's no point worrying. She had done what she had to, and so had Gale, and what would happen at the Reaping would happen. And anyway, there's nothing they can do except feel helpless, and that wouldn't change their odds a lick.

But she can't just do nothing or her leg will bounce all day and everyone will know what's on her mind without her having to say anything at all, so instead, she runs the odds. Twelve's math courses never took them beyond basic algebra, but she knows instinctually there's more. The formulas she uses are her own, and only guesswork, but something it's better than nothing at all.

Customers filter in and out of the bakery in a faceless blur of quick exchanges. Peeta keeps sticking cartoons scratched onto the back of receipts in weird places for her to find. Any other day, finding one of them in the cash drawer would have made her snicker at the least.

Today, all she can see is that the drawer looks off. A quick count and a look at the sales ledger reveals that she's right.

"Peeta, the till is off."

He's restocking the front of the bakery case on the other side of the counter, and nothing is visible except his mop of blonde curls and the very tips of his ears, which pinken noticeably.

"By how much?"

He stands up and rubs the back of his neck, the sleeves of his sweater inching up his arms to reveal the first slender lines of his tattoo as he does so. The sweater is too small for him and fits much too close to his torso. Are sweaters even warm when they're that tight? Why couldn't he just get one that fit?

"Ten dollars," she blurts, the ducks her head to recount the money in the drawer. "We've only been open for two hours. I think you've broken your own record."

He laughs.

"Did you check the back of the drawer?"

She pops out the cash tray and peeks underneath.

"Nothing."

He's suddenly right next to her peering over her shoulder.

"Here, let me just-"

Leaning one arm on the counter, he uses the other to lift the heavy, black iron register onto its back. When the back of the drawer is lit by the overhead light, she sees why. Peeking out from behind a metal bar at the very back of the drawer is the crumpled corner of a ten dollar bill.

"Um, will you...?"

He nods his head toward the register.

"My hands are too big."

She's fishing the bill out when the bell over the door rings. With her head twisted over her shoulder, she watches as Delly walks in with a determined set in her jaw, followed by a stormy Thistle.

"Hey guys," says Peeta, easily flipping the register right side up.

Katniss shoots Delly and Thistle a distracted smile as she attempts to put the drawer back together. The cash tray seems to fit, but the drawer won't close completely. This has happened before. Something else is stuck in the drawer. Katniss lifts it out the tray and fishes around inside the drawer for the offending object.

"I'm here for bread," Delly proclaims. Thistle rolls her eyes.

"Given that that's all they sell, I'm sure they know that already."

Delly ignores her and grabs a yellow bag, dropping it on the counter with a glare at Thistle.

Peeta stares at her for a moment, then shakes his head.

"What did you do Delly?" he says sadly.

Delly squares her shoulders and smiles grimly.

"Exactly what I needed to."

Thistle doesn't have a quip or joke or even a smile, but there's a glint in her eye that has nothing to do with humor. Its anger.

Then Katniss realizes. Delly has taken a tesserae. Her hand pauses in its exploration of the drawer, her fingertips brushing the cool metal lightly.

"How many does this make Delly?" Peeta asks, a tremor interrupting his voice.

"This is the first time," she answers defiantly.

One extra entry? That was all?

She shares a look with Thistle. Both of them are Seam born and understand intimately all the implications of being forced to take tessarae. There is no way Thistle would have asked Delly to take one. Thistle made enough from her illicit side business that Delly would not have had to worry about food. Delly is taking the tesserae of her own accord, probably out of some misguided notion of self sufficiency and pride.

It was a very stupid thing to do. And Thistle seems to agree.

Suddenly, Katniss' hand encounters something sharp and she jerks it back in surprise. As she does, she notices a small cut on her fingertip. She curses loudly, causing the conversation to stop and all eyes turn to her.

And then she thinks something so horrible that she is sure every person in the room has heard it.

What is a cut, if its her name that they call this year?

The world feels blurry and not real- as if its on television and not happening right in front of her, and someone else, not her, mumbles out an unintelligible excuse and ducks into the kitchen. The boxes of bread are still piled high, the golden seal of the Capitol emblazoned on every side and staring unblinkingly back at her. Leaning against the door, she glares over the top of the boxes at the far wall and sucks on her fingertip, a slight tinge of metallic blood on her tongue.

So Delly has seventeen entries. Of course she can afford to flippantly add a slip with her name into the bowl. The difference between sixteen and seventeen is nothing compared to the miles between sixteen and fifty.

The swift kick she sends to the box on her right does nothing to alleviate her anger. Neither does the second. And when the door swings open and Peeta walks in, she's thwarted from a third attempt.

His eyes flicker from the holes in the box to her face.

"Please tell me what that box did so I don't make the same mistake," he says.

She scowls, and his own smile fades minutely, before he clears his throat and glances at the floor. The silence that stretches between them is loaded, but Katniss doesn't care to alleviate the tension in the room. He's waiting for her to react, but he is also part of the problem. Even his odds are better than hers. It strikes her suddenly that he may have the best odds of all, because so many exceptions had been made for him to operate the bakery already, they might exempt him from the Reaping as well.

But one look at Peeta's face, where the telltale lines of worry already crease his forehead, tells her what she needs to know. No one is safe. Not even him. But he knows how many entries she has, and he too is worried, but not for himself.

For her.

This deflates her somewhat. Hadn't she once thought of Twelve as a pen for pigs on their way to slaughter? Reaping or not, Peeta is squarely under the thumb of the Capitol no matter what he does and would be for the rest of his life. One way or another, no one escapes a Reaping.

"They've left," he says, like he's reaching a toe into cold water. "Thistle slapped the bread out of Delly's hand the minute they walked outside. I think they're still arguing."

She stares at the scuffed toes of her boots and pops her injured finger out of her mouth.

"Its just a joke to her," she spits, "just a way to prove a point."

"No, Katniss," he says gently. "Delly did what she thought was best. Look at who she's friends with."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means she knows you never would have stood by and just let someone else take care of you."

"Are you saying this is my fault?"

Peeta shakes his head.

"No. Not at all. Delly sees you and everything you've done to keep your family safe... She doesn't have a job, and the only skill she's ever known is now useless. She'll never take over her parent's business. She thinks she is a liability, and she's trying to keep Thistle safe. From herself."

She snorts.

"I didn't say she was going about it the right way," he says. He puts his hand on the door. "I should get back out there. But take your time. Come out when you're ready."

The door swings shut behind him, but he's only gone for a moment before he reappears, shock evident on his face.

"I found this stuck to the top of the cash drawer," he says hurriedly.

The thickly folded piece of paper he puts in her hands is covered in graying mechanical type. What is written are a jumble of words she's never seen before. Some are very long. Others have combinations of letters she neither seen nor heard of. But one amongst them she has, and it jumps off that page as if it is electrified.  _Seizure._ There are formulas that vaguely resemble things she's seen from one of Gale's textbooks. They're molecules. But they're not labeled with names, just letters and numbers that mean nothing when combined together. She unfolds the paper further, and right at the top, the word "Anti-Convulsant". Followed by a name. And the words " _District 13."_

"Is this some kind of a joke?" she mutters in disbelief. "District 13?"

"I don't know," he says in awe. "But it says this drug can stop seizures. Katniss… you need this. We need to get this for you. Could this be real? It looks real."

Peeta's voice is rising in excitement, and he takes the paper from her, examining the edges of it with a look of concentration on his face.

"Only the very edges of this paper are yellowing…," he says, "It's new paper."

"What does that mean?"

His eyes narrow at it.

"Could be nothing. But… I don't think so. Its a schematic. An instructional sheet? Or some kind of a recipe? I don't know. But its printed on nice paper. Expensive paper, designed to last. And its recent. Why would someone buy paper this expensive for a joke? Not to mention, you can't even get this in Twelve. And take a look at the fibers-"

He drags his finger down the page.

"See the blue fibers? The little red ones? It's recycled. But made to last a long, long time. I've never seen anything like it, but I've heard about it. Its like what they keep the District records on. Birth certificates. Marriage licenses..."

"So its nice paper. It doesn't prove whatever is written here is real."

"No. But I think this actually came from District 13."

"District Thirteen is rubble. We've all seen the footage. We even learned about it in school."

"Maybe. Maybe. But who else would produce something like this? Its so involved. Every step- from the way the paper is made, to what's actually written on it. It doesn't make sense for someone to fake this. There's too much effort. Its too complex. Not even the Capitol would go this far to catch someone out, especially when they have peacekeepers on the ground anyway. And, Katniss- if this is real... it could save you."

She stares silently at the paper, absorbing the implications. Everything Peeta has said makes perfect sense. But what doesn't make sense is why.

Why would someone go through such elaborate measures just to get her a sheet of paper she couldn't understand anyway? What did they want in return?

"Getting this to you would have been very risky. I think… its an act of good faith," he says carefully. She must have spoken her last thoughts aloud. "Someone wants your trust."

He continues to examine the paper, running his finger along the words. Then, he stops.

"There's more," he breathes. "At the bottom. Look."

At the bottom of the paper there's uneven, scratchy handwriting, done in pencil, with a few letters written so heavily they nearly puncture the page. The text reads:  _Areyou and Le_ _ **mon**_ _head hungry? We'r_ _ **e**_   _all go_ _ **i**_ _n_ _ **g**_ to  _be_ _ **h**_ _ere un_ _ **t**_ _il then,_ _ **even S**_ _._

"I hope I'm not lemonhead," says Peeta with a groan.

"I think you are, actually. But its also a clue," she says, and then tells him about the peacekeeper with the lemon, who she believes isn't really a peacekeeper. "This is from him. It has to be."

"Well, its a man's handwriting. That's for sure."

"How can you tell?"

"Its just an impression. Look at how sloppy it is. The pressure they used. See how it's indented?"

He holds the paper up to the light, and she can see where the pencil has embossed the paper.

"Wait a minute," says Peeta. "Do you see how some letters are thicker than others? Look. 'M, O and N in lemonhead. E, I, G, H, T… thats eight. And e,v,e,n,s… Katniss. This is an invitation. He wants to meet. Monday, eight o'clock. In the Evens."

"I hope he's not holding his breath," she snorts dismissively.

Peeta continues to examine the letter, shifting it in the light, his brow drawn together in concentration.

"Maybe we should go," he says cautiously. "Think about it.  _Are you hungry?_  I don't think he's talking about food. I think he has this medicine. Otherwise how would he have this paper?"

"I don't like this, Peeta."

"Neither do I. But if there's a chance this is real, we have to take it."

Peeta has a point. And the man had gone far out of his way to contact her, and given away a lot of information about himself in the process. If it was a trap, he was doing an awful job of being discreet. He had all but advertised his personal history and alliance to the rebellion to her. All the same, she's not convinced. And the Evens are blocked off. Getting around the vans and the peacekeepers stationed there would be difficult, if not impossible. Not to mention why it's been blocked off. The disease.

But If this is real, it could stop her seizures. At least, thats what the paper claimed. Maybe it would cure them entirely. And the headaches too. Giddy excitement flares to life in her chest.

"We can't just run in," she says slowly. "The Evens have been blocked off, and it's crawling with Peacekeepers. This is risky. Very risky. And everyone in there is sick. We'll have to be careful."

"We will. And we're out of there the minute anything seems off."

She doesn't trust this man, whoever he is. But she does, without a doubt, trust Peeta. She cautiously agrees.

* * *

 

But come Sunday morning the sheet-wrapped dead have started to pile up in the gutters and Katniss forbids Prim from leaving the house. She avoids looking directly them, but its impossible not to see the faces and bodies inside when the sheets flap open. Blackened fingers, hands, feet and faces. Limbs contorted in grotesque poses. Trails of crusted vomit on chins and chests. Open, leaking sores dotting the skin.

She means to turn away from the window as a peacekeeper drags away the last body left out on their street, but she's planted there as if her legs are locked in concrete. That's how she sees it- the person the peacekeeper is dragging away isn't dead. Not yet. But they're close. Their back bows, neck taught and face strained, mouth open in a moan Katniss can't hear. Their swollen eyes are open, just slightly, and she watches in silent horror as their head lolls to the side and their eyes meet hers.

She rips herself away from the window and clenches the edges of the sink. She flips the faucet on and stands there staring at her hands uncomprehendingly as she washes them.

How many are dead now? There's no count that's being broadcast. No information circulating. There have been no announcements, no medicine has been sent. In fact, there's been no word at all from either the Capitol or Commander Thread.

She turns the water off, rubbing her hands down with a clean, white rag.

A shiver creeps down her spine. Their silence didn't bode anything good.

She doesn't know what she will do come Monday, but entering the Evens, even for a potential cure for her seizures, is out of the question. She and Prim will both be expected in school- but she would rather risk the ire of the peacekeepers than she or Prim getting sick.

With wide, glassy eyes, Prim peers out their front window over the kitchen sink and watches a peacekeeper march past their house. She chews on the side of her finger contemplatively, watching the scene unfold with a look on her face that Katniss has come to know as her thinking-face.

She drifts from the window to her chair at the kitchen table, where a few scraps of paper covered in scribbles lay out and her breakfast sits, untouched, off to the side. Katniss, seated across from her and working on an enormous mug of freshly cut willow bark tea, eyes the food on her sister's plate with worry.

"You know," Prim ventures in a small voice a moment later. "I don't think its air-borne. Look here."

She points to a map she's sketched on some scrap paper on the kitchen table, where areas shaded in with loose coal dust illustrate the progression of the illness.

"The affected people are all over the place. It's not one section that's expanding, its several contained spots. And they're the poorest areas in the District. I don't think this is a coincidence."

"What do you mean?"

"Well think about it. Why haven't they shut the school down? Or the distribution center? Why aren't the peacekeepers wearing masks when they move the dead? All of those things are signs. They know something we don't."

Katniss blinks at her younger sister in surprise. She's right. The peacekeepers were wearing gloves, but not masks, as they moved the bodies out of the street. If the disease was airborne, wouldn't they try to protect themselves?

"Regardless. Stay inside. We don't know for sure what this is, and I don't want you taking any risks."

She looks down at her mug on the table, cradled between her hands. The edges are chipped and the ceramic underneath is yellowing. Her bones feel heavy as she leans over her elbows on the table. Even with a plague spreading through the district, life had to go on. They need essentials, food and soap and coal, no matter what's going on outside. There's an inventory of things they need now or will need soon. They're low on twine and candles. Prim is in the middle of a growth spurt and very soon she'd be as tall as Katniss, maybe taller. She would need cloth for a new dress.

And since the outbreak started, alcohol has been in high demand and she has up at all hours running the still. As a result, more if their budget has had to be diverted to buying coal, and the distribution center workers have been getting suspicious. So earlier that week Katniss had visited site of the what used to be the Hob, where the melting ice had freed some of the planks of wood that had made up the stalls. She'd been dragging it home, stockpiling it in the shadows, and waiting to split it into smaller pieces when she got the chance.

Today is perfect for doing just that.

She slips out the back door with half a piece of dried meat (breakfast) hanging out of her mouth, and reaches for the splintering handle of the hatchet propped up at by the door.

The battered wood is rough in her hands and in just a few swings, callouses are already throbbing to life on her palms. Despite the pain, the jarring impact of the head of the ax through the wood gives her something to channel her energy into. To distract herself with. Like the soreness in the muscles of her back. The burn in her shoulders. The crick in her neck.

Sweat beads on her forehead as the sun begins to climb in the sky. Spring is definitely here. Its warm enough to venture out in just a sweater and pants, though she relishes the lasting bite of winter's chill that clings to the air. She rolls the sleeves of her sweater up her arms when the hatchet gets stuck in a particularly gnarled piece of wood. With a sigh, she puts her foot on top of the plank and tugs backward with the hatchet. The wood gives and she stumbles up and back. Blood rushes from her head as she straightens, and a sharp, shooting pain just behind her eyes flares to life. Dropping the hatchet, she brings her palms to her eyes and rubs. Patterns dance behind her eyelids and the pressure from her hands soothes the ache behind her eyes. But the moment she drops her hands away, it's back, this time racing underneath her scalp from her eyes to the back of her head.

The hatchet lies prone in the patchy sprigs of grass that poke shyly out of the dirt. Coughing dryly, she grabs the handle and picks it up again, ignoring the pain in her head and resolving to finish what she had started. Headache be damned.

The sun is brighter than it was when she started the task a few minutes ago. Its hotter too. Maybe she should take her sweater off? The next sharp crack of the hatchet splitting wood echoes angrily in her head like lightning streaking across the sky. She drops it to the ground a second time. Her chest heaves as she pants, and she pauses to hang her head forward with a wince. Air moves deeply in her chest, but the ground is tilting and the sun is burning the skin on the back of her neck.

With the wood pile dwindling frustratingly close to its last dregs, she's reluctant to stop now, especially since the final few pieces would take next to no time to split. No sense in quitting when she's close to the end. She grunts in annoyance as a twinge of pain races through her head and bends over to pick up the hatchet to finish what she started.

* * *

It looks like a white brillo pad- wooly, wiry and ashen. Dark shapes move along the periphery of her vision. She blinks, and her vision clears a little to reveal that the brillo pad has blue eyes. It gives her a watery smile.

_Peeta._

"Welcome back," he croaks.

"She's awake!"

Its Rory. Why is he here?

"Don't let her sit up!"

Prim.

"Katniss, you have stay down, ok?" Peeta says.

Hands hold her shoulders down and she tries to pry them off. It happened again. She doesn't remember how she ended up on the couch in her living room, but she's there now and the mystery of waking up somewhere different with no memory of she got there is by now familiar.

"I'm fine," she says shakily, "I want to get water."

Rory gives Peeta a look.

"Stay. I'll get it."

She shoves Rory's hand off her.

"I can do it!" she snaps.

But before she's even finished with her sentence, fat tears splash down her cheeks and roll over her jaw. A hot, oily  _something_  bursts to life inside her, washing over her face and the back of her neck, leaving a trail of burning, prickling skin in its wake. She rears up and scrambles off the couch, desperate to escape the arms and eyes that pinned her to the sprints down the hall and into the room she shares with Prim, bolting the door after her.

Sitting heavily on the bed, she tries to understand the sequence of events that lead her to where she is now. She had wanted to chop wood for the still. Found her father's hatchet leaning up by the back door. She has a memory of the roughness of the handle. Then, a blank space. Nothing.

"Katniss?" Peeta calls from the other side of the door. She holds her breath, staying perfectly still as the doorknob rattles. "Open the door. Please... I have you water."

Her front teeth tug on her lip and goosebumps prickle to life on her arms. Her chin trembles and her face twists.

"Please Katniss. Open up. Its just me."

Of course this had happened in front of Prim. She leans over to her side, gingerly laying herself down. One of the springs of the mattress creaks underneath her as she shifts and there's a thud on the door. Like Peeta hitting his head against the wood gently.

"Please… please Katniss."

He's begging now, voice is raw and jagged like broken glass. She doesn't answer, but the mattress squeaks again as she rises and pads over to door. She unlatches the lock and steps backward. A split second later Peeta is through the door and she is warm and weightless in his arms.

The scent of wood and sweat and smoke cling to him, but underneath that, something warmer. A spice, but airier. Wet. Woody. Rich. Like rain through an open window.

She wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his neck.

How had he known to come?

Prim must have left for help. She went to find Rory, and then told Rory to bring Peeta.

She had been out there, wading through streets lined with the dying and the dead, all because Katniss was sick.

She had put Prim in danger. Who knew what could have happened with Prim out there in the war zone that Twelve that had become? What if Prim got sick? It would be her fault.

What if Prim had gotten hurt? If she had died?

And then she's crying so hard that she hasn't noticed her fingers digging into Peeta's back, or when he shifts them so they're lying down, drawing the blanket around them until the world is a quiet, woolen cocoon and all that exists is the gentle puff of air on her cheek that is his breath, the solid weight of his arm draped around her, and the soft words he's speaking into her hair.

Peeta doesn't say its ok. Because its not. And she's relieved her doesn't try to lie to her, because that would make it all so much worse. Instead, he tells her stories about the bakery. His brothers, and his friends. She curls into his chest, willing his warmth to fill the cold emptiness in her own. Could he feel the numb vibrations that rattled through her? His hand runs down her braid and over her back, fingers dancing lightly over her spine and the exposed skin of her lower back. Probably not.

He also probably doesn't mean to invite that flutter back in her chest, or the tingling trails his fingers leave on her skin. But that's what he does, and whether or not he means to, the effect is the same.

She is electric. Empty. Heartsick.

He loves her. She doesn't understand this. Its like an incorrectly balanced equation with a variable whose value is another variable. It doesn't fit together. The energy he stirs in her is strange and rampaging. There is nothing she can do to bottle it and she fears its name more than she fears death itself. The pounding of his heart sounds loudly through his chest. That muscle fascinates her. How could it keep that heavy, frantic pace without hurting him?

But when she asks about it, he just grins at her, as though it's a secret they both share. She insists there could be something wrong with it. A spike of fear shoots through her at thought. What if it kept beating faster and faster until it just stopped?

His smile dims a little, not much, and he tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear, his eyes flickering between hers.

"It won't," he says.

"How do you know that?"

"It'll keep beating as long as you need it to."

"But I  _don't_  need it to. You do. It's yours."

He shakes his head.

"No. It's  _yours_."

She stills, hardly breathing. How could he say that so casually? How was she meant to respond? Her eyes flicker downward and she swallows.

"Did you mean it..." he entreats suddenly, "when you kissed me?"

Why does it matter if she did? Is there a way to mean or not mean to kiss someone? It was an intentional action, after all. You had to mean to do it in order to actually do it. And anyway, it was just the press of one mouth to another, in the end. Just skin to skin. Nothing more.

But as she remembers it- the heat of him, his body unbelievably solid against her, the way she had felt both wildly out of control and perfectly safe all at once- she understands that if there is a way for a kiss to mean nothing, she doesn't know it and she doesn't want to. And she would never want to know the person who would kiss Peeta and not mean it.

What answer could she give him? In the end, if he loved her, could kissing him ever mean nothing? It had meant something. Of course it had. Maybe not the same thing to her as it did him, but it wasn't nothing.

So that's why the only answer she has for him is 'No'.

Because if the answer is yes, then Peeta becomes her greatest weakness and her most powerful enemy all at once. And there would be no hope of surviving him. It was just better that her answer be no. The kiss had meant nothing to her. But she can't bring herself say it.

Is she too selfish, or too afraid? It doesn't matter. Either way, she dooms him when she presses her lips to his a second time.

She realizes too late that this kiss is not at all like the last. Warmth pools in her stomach, then spreads to her limbs, curling her toes in her socks and her hands in his shirt, and she is lost, so impossibly lost to it, that she knows she has equally doomed herself. Her hands- rough and tacky from handling wood, stick to whatever of him they touch. His sweater, his neck, the downy curls of his hair… It lasts forever and only a moment before he pulls away and tries to get her to sleep.

But she finds Peeta is easily convinced that more kissing is a good idea. And she thinks it is too. It makes her feel lazy, like she's eaten too much on a hot day, and her lips move slowly against his, and then even slower still. And that's when he sees her eyes are drooping, and really tries to get her to sleep. It's not as easy to distract him this time around.

Monday dawns bright and stubborn, and there's no convincing Peeta not to go to the Evens- especially not after the day before. In fact, he seems more resolved than ever that it is a good idea. He's sitting across from Prim at the table talking about the spread of the illness and she is pouting on the couch, but it is as if they are talking to each other from across the room.

That morning when she had awoken, Peeta was already up. And he had a plan for breaking into the Evens. She has to admit, its a good one. Using one of Prim's maps, he plotted a course through several backyards to reach a basement that connected with another basement that lead into the Evens, completely bypassing the peacekeepers and the bodies in the street. But that doesn't mean she's happy about it. The plan is still incredibly risky.

She shoots a glance at Peeta, and his eyes flash from Prim and the map on the table to her face. As her jaw hardens, he raises his eyebrows challengingly. She huffs, curls around so she's not facing him, and sips a little bit of tea from her mug.

No matter how many times she downed willowbark, it only ever tasted like tree.

Well, if he had a death wish, so be it. She obviously couldn't let him go alone. That was a disaster waiting to happen.

The day slips by. Peeta heads to work just as the sun rises, but refuses to let her come too. She and Prim stay home from school and do anything they can to distract themselves from the carts full of bodies that rumble through the streets. Prim avoids looking at her in the eyes, and every time she does, Katniss can feel a sickly twinge in her stomach.

She laughs too readily. Her voice is too canned.

Prim is faking it. Hiding what she's really feeling.

Mid-way through a card-game, Katniss decides faking it is the way to go and pretends to have a headache in order to lie down on the couch and close her eyes. She doesn't understand what's happening with Prim, but she's knows its her fault. She turns until her face is tucked into the back cushions of the couch and lies there faking sleep until Peeta comes back that evening, Rory in tow.

Which is really smart, because Prim doesn't even notice when they slip out of the house later that night.

Peeta's plan is not only smart, it actually works. In just minutes they're standing in the middle of a house in the Evens, and, if her sense of direction isn't mistaken, its the same bullethole riddled house that members of the rebellion had emerged from just before the riots broke out. She gives Peeta a sideways glance and a rare smile. He may not have the skills to hunt, but he isn't totally useless.

Together, they round the corner into another room and Katniss blanches in surprise.

A group of dark forms sit around a table, with papers of various sizes and colors spread out in front of them. Some of the papers look like maps. Others are inventories, but of what she can't guess. At the head of the table is the peacekeeper who gave her the lemon, and he raises his head slowly to look at them as they enter. With the shadows playing across his face, he looks like someone else. Someone vaguely familiar, but she can't put her finger on who. However, once he shifts and light falls across his face, the familiarity ebbs and he is back to being the peacekeeper.

He looks entirely different in the light than he does in darkness.

She and Peeta stay quiet as they move forward, and the creaking of the floorboards under their feet announce their presence to the rest of the room.

"I'll be damned," says Peeta suddenly, to the peacekeeper. "I knew I recognized you."

Its the peacekeeper who had given her the lemon, only his face keeps shifting in appearance. His bone structure is obvious in the shadows, but in the light, it is much different. He had altered it somehow, with pigment. Like camouflage.

He smiles impishly at Peeta.

"I bet you're one of those that never forget a face."

"No. I'm sure I've forgotten faces. But yours is famous."

The man laughs.

"Well, I'm glad you remember me at my prettiest," he teases lightly, tugging on one of his curls. "Black doesn't suit me, does it?"

"I think red worked better."

And then all the pieces fall together.

"You're Finnick O'dair," Katniss blurts.

He bends just at the waist, bowing slightly and smirking at her.

"One and the same."

"But how are you here?"

"Jesus, haven't you heard? The whole country has gone to hell in a handbasket. District Four fell long ago. I was on my way north, and decided to stop for that old lush," he answers, jerking his finger over his shoulder at a man slouched over the table but gazing at her openly. "And now, I'm trapped until this damn fence falls."

Her eyes trail over Finnick's shoulder to the man he pointed to. It's Haymitch.

"What are you doing here?" she hisses at him. He raises his flask to her humorlessly, and she quickly takes stock of the other faces in the room, unwilling to deal with any more surprises. Ripper's there. So is Gale, leaning back until he's nearly hidden in the shadows in the corner of the room. And there are other victors she recognizes. Annie Cresta, who went mad in the arena. Beetee, the victor who won by electrocuting his opponents. And tiny, feral Johanna Mason, her dark eyes glinting dangerously in the low light. The rest are all Seam men, dark eyes and soot streaked faces peering at her curiously.

"Well, welcome to the rebellion sweetheart," Haymitch says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY COW DID YOU KNOW THIS CHAPTER IS ALMOST 9,000 WORDS?! I hope that makes up for how late it is ;) Here's why: I am currently traveling for personal reasons (not vacation), and my time to write is very limited. That said, I'm doing to my best, and you can check my tumblr, listed on my profile, for updates, outtakes and previews! And, if you ever need info on RD and where I'm at with it, I have my anon turned on and I answer all my asks. :)
> 
> Questions? Comments? Be sure to leave a review and, because I just learned I can answer them (Thank you, GraphiteGirl!), I will respond.
> 
> Huge thank you to my phenomenal beta Opaque, who deserves so much credit for her outstanding input on this.


	17. The Librarian of District Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No wonder Sae had wanted to warn her, the future wife of the only baker in the District. Prim was right afterall. The disease isn't contagious, because it isn't a disease at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Graphic violence, gun violence, gun violence in a school setting. Please read on with care if any of these things upset you. If you are interested in reading this chapter with the triggering parts removed, please message me and I will send you a safe version.

_**xvii.** _

* * *

It's a shock to see Gale here, even though she knew he would be. He as good as told her that he was with the rebellion, but a part of her knew even before that. Back in the first few months they had hunted together- when she was still knock-kneed and his pants were held up with a length of rope around his waist- she had known. He didn't need to tell her. Didn't need to say anything at all.

Instinctively, she understood that if there was a chance to stir up trouble for the Capitol, Gale Hawthorne would be there. Or, he would be slinking away from the scene of the crime- a grin on his face like the cat that got the cream.

Maybe she had been holding onto that image of him- the angry boy from the woods in too-big britches sporting a perpetual black eye. Maybe that's why it seems so impossible to see him here now. When had Gale the angry boy, become Gale the uncompromising man?

He frowns and shifts uncomfortably. She hadn't realized she'd been staring at him, but  _he_  had. Now his eyes are burning at her through the darkness. Is he angry? Or something else? His expression is unreadable, and it frightens her to think that the boy glaring at her might now be more a stranger than a friend.

She averts her eyes quickly, feeling like she's been stung by an insect she never even saw. Jolted. Betrayed.

When the rebels were still just a shadowy, anonymous group, it had been easier to imagine them. They were different shades of Gale: some angrier, some older, some larger. But he was always the baseline. Who else could possibly believe a rebellion would do any good in the end? Yet here they are- exactly what she hadn't expected. Aging miners, a few young men, (one carrying a child in a homemade papoose), an alcoholic, a one armed woman. All people, just like Gale, who believe they will survive opposing the Capitol.

The victors are her greatest surprise.

On television, they seemed to be the shining pillars of Capital rule. But in person Johanna Mason is a study in opposites and extremes with her shoulders curling inward but her jaw jutting forward so stifflyit gives the impression of being carved in stone. Her knees are propped against the edge of the table, her arms resting on top with her hands dangling from her wrists, but her fists are clenched and bloodless. Finnick O'dair sits, just as tall and golden as on television, though his features are obscured artfully with make up. He fidgets so much that he is never completely still, and his legendary playfulness is closer to bitterness than good humor. There's no surprises with Annie Cresta. She had gone mad live and in full color during her Games. What  _is_  a surprise is the hand Finnick has on the back of her neck. So casually it's thoughtless.

How can he be so  _nonchalant_? If what he says about District Four is true, and Panem really is close to all out war, how could he possibly love someone? Especially someone as irretrievably broken as Annie Cresta?

Coldness creeps into her bones. It's familiar to her by now- the feeling of something doomed to end in tragedy. She sneaks a glance at Peeta. Didn't he feel it too? He must know by now there's only one way they will end up.

The chill reaches her chest, which tightens and stills. In a fit of sudden anger she wonders if he had meant to entrap her when he started their game with Cray. The one that had ignited Twelve with talk of the two people who had lost everything in the fire, but found one another in its ashes. Gale certainly believed he did. Even as she thinks it, she knows it's wrong. A nasty voice in the back of her head reminds her she is the one who kissed him. That the onus for this mess rests squarely on her own shoulders. She is the one who started it.

And she would have to be the one to end it.

"Introductions?" Gale asks, glancing around the room.

"Don't bother," grunts a shorter man with a full beard, his arms resting spread out on the table. He eyes she and Peeta with distrust.

"Excellent," Haymitch grunts, "let's get started."

"Wait," Peeta says. "We don't want to go any further unless we know this is real."

He holds up the sheet of paper they had found in the register and lets it fall open.

Haymitch frowns.

"Yes," he rasps, "it's real. And I have the pills. Can we start  _now_?"

In the darkness, Peeta's hand finds hers and grips it tightly. She can almost hear his voice in her ear telling her that she will be ok.

Her head feels bloodless. Her throat is tight. His hand is solid and strong, but his grip is so fleeting that for one agonizing moment after he lets go she wants to chase it. She shouldn't. She doesn't. But she wants to. And that terrifies her. The cure for her seizures is real, and it's within reach, but she doesn't feel anything. Nothing at all. Tears prick her eyes but she furiously blinks them away. Now is neither the time nor place for that. When she is alone, maybe. Later tonight. When the world is quiet and dark.

And after she tells Peeta what a terrible mistake she has made.

Her shoulders sag. She can't help it. And she doesn't care if anyone else sees. Besides, anyone who knows what the medication is for will know that she needs it. No one will think anything of her if she looks upset. No one except Peeta.

Are her hands shaking? They must be. That must be how he knows something is wrong. His gaze flits to her, worry written across his face.

"Here's the deal sweetheart," Haymitch says, leaning back in his chair. He coughs, spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth. As he wipes it away with the back of his hand, she catches a glimpse of the bottle of pills he clutches.

That's it. Her cure. Right there in his hand.

Shouldn't she feel  _something_?

But she doesn't. The flutter- the one that belongs to Peeta- is dead in her chest. Still. As if it had never been there. First, she has lost Gale. Now she will lose Peeta. And then there will be no one who loves her left in the whole world except for Prim.

But it would be just fine. Because she never needed anyone to love her before and why would that change now? She didn't even  _want_  anyone to love her. She never did. Never.

"It's real simple this time," Haymitch says. "You got something we need, and we got something you need. Fair trade. You get your pills. We get tomorrow night in the bakery- alone. You don't ask any questions and make sure we don't get interrupted."

"Why?" Peeta asks.

"Didn't I just say no questions?" Haymitch grunts. "Look. You want her drugs or not?"

"Of course, but I can't agree to this blindly. I have to know something- anything- or the medication won't matter because we'll both be dead. Peacekeepers are constantly in and out of the bakery and Commander Thread is breathing down our necks. We can't afford any risks."

While he's talking, Beetee abandons his tinkering to search through a canvas bag in the corner. He returns to the table with a white metal case in hand. He pops it open, withdrawing a series of instruments Katniss has never seen before and laying them out on the table. There's what looks like an over-sized two pronged fork, a thin metal tube with glass at one end, a rubber triangle with a metal handle, and a white palm-sized pod with a brightly lit screen. She's seen one like it before. It's used to test blood before the Reapings.

"They're reconnecting your stove," Johanna quips.

Haymitch shoots her a venomous glare.

"What? Its not like it'll even matter soon. What do you care anyway? Let's just get this show on the road."

Annie's odd little smile is slipping from her face and Katniss watches in horrified fascination as her mouth starts moving as if she's talking. But she's not. She's not making any sound at all.

"Don't mind her," Johanna snickers. "She's having a secret meeting of her own."

Finnick scowls at her and whispers something to Annie that makes her frown slightly and then grow still and contemplative. There's a gentleness to this that twists Katniss' stomach in knots. She looks away just as Beetee snaps rubber gloves on his hands.

"I'm ready," says Beetee. "Katniss, will you get up on the table?"

She starts. She wasn't even aware that the man knew her name.

"I need to examine you."

Her foot automatically moves backwards, but Peeta catches her.

"It'll be fine."

His voice is low and gentle, and an unexpected shiver creeps its way up her spine.

"They probably just want to know if the medication is what you really need. No sense making a bad deal. They need us on their side."

Her eyes flicker to the array of tools on the table.

"They're just doctors' tools. None of them hurt."

Of course, now Peeta knows that she has never seen a doctor before. Even if her mother hadn't been a healer, her family would never have had the money to see a real doctor.

" _I know_."

She squares her shoulders and climbs onto the table, sitting with her legs hanging off the edge. She's so busy ignoring Peeta that she misses the flash of amusement on his face.

"A little privacy, maybe?" he says, glancing around the room. Beetee frowns, as if he doesn't understand what Peeta's problem is. "She's my  _fiance_ ," he says, with a pointed look, and Katniss' stomach roils violently.

But when the room clears, she is grateful for Peeta's intervention, because what if Beetee found something truly horrible was wrong with her and told her in front of a room full of strangers? She is doubly happy when Peeta also steps out of the room, leaving her alone with the aging victor and his glinting tools.

He pokes and prods her with them, and Peeta is right- none of it hurts, though her knees do feel decidedly strange after Beetee whacks them with the rubber triangle. Its not painful, but she still doesn't like it. Nor does she like how they jerk on their own, though Beetee assures her with a (mostly) straight face that that's what's supposed to happen.

He asks her questions too. What she eats (" _Whatever I can"_ ). How she sleeps- (" _Ok"_ ). What her seizures are like- (" _I don't know"_ ). What this information will tell him she isn't sure, but she answers as honestly as she can. Except when he asks her about what he calls 'sexual activity'. In the hallway Peeta coughs (chokes?) and she suspects it's to hide a laugh. Her response is to glare venomously at Beetee. He raises his eyebrows, as if there might be a forthcoming answer. When there isn't, he moves on. Throughout it all Beetee's face is blank, but that changes after he flashes a light in her eyes, and she jerks her head back in surprise at the burst of pain in her head.

That's when he frowns.

"What?" she says, "What's wrong?"

"You're sensitive to light."

"What does that mean?"

"Maybe nothing," he says. He's clearly lying though, because a wrinkle forms between his brows. She knows that look. It's not a good one.

As his tests carry on, the frown grows deeper. It distracts her for the rest of the exam, until he pricks her finger with a little machine and reads something on the screen it's attached to. The pink scar on her forehead catches his attention momentarily. The smooth plastic of his gloves trace it across her temple, pulling at it to test how it has healed.

"Your seizures," he says, "how many have you had?"

She hasn't been counting. And even if she had, she wouldn't want the number out there to be known. Not with Peeta's ears so nearby.

He's likely to hear it and say something wonderful that would ruin her for the rest of the night, and then where would she be?

Silently, she mouths the number to Beetee, and he pushes the glasses up his nose.

"It's not much. It might not even work. These pills are supposed to treat all kinds of seizures, but as a result they can be less effective. Luckily, if they don't work, the worst that will happen is nothing at all. I'm not a doctor, but I received medical training in District Thirteen after they helped a bunch of us from Three escape. You need a real doctor, but I'm the best they could do when Gale told us what you needed."

He pops his glasses off his face and rubs the lens distractedly with the bottom of his shirt.

So it was Gale who had arranged for Beetee and the pills to travel from District Thirteen. This information gives her more questions than it answers. Why did Beetee care? For that matter, why did District Thirteen?

"Katniss…When District Twelve falls-"

She looks at him sharply. His voice is low and steady. Barely audible.

"- _and it will_ \- get out as soon as possible. Head north. Straight north. District Thirteen is there. They have medicine. They can fix you."

"What's the point of telling me this?"

Beetee looks at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

"The people here... They will follow you. They trust you. The way things are going… you may be the only chance they have."

"But what do you  _mean_  when you say-"

"The Capitol will not hesitate, Katniss. Do you understand what they'll do? If they think they'll lose?"

The fall of District Twelve, and what would come after, isn't something she wants to think about. Or talk about. She nods and hopes he'll give up on her.

The bottle of pills sits next to her on the table, and Beetee reaches for it and presses it in her hands.

"Go ahead. Take one now. I expect I'll see you again. Soon."

Beetee doesn't mean for his faint smile to taunt her, but that's what it feels like as she turns the bottle over and the pills inside rattle- a scant, hollow sound.

With a peek inside, she counts them. Only ten.

There is a white label stretched across the front. It reads "Take once daily."

Her heart stutters heavily, then sinks into her stomach.

* * *

What happens next is a blur. After Peeta agrees to give the rebels access to the bakery and sets a date, they leave. Gale's eyes are still burning meaningfully. Finnick's smile is triumphant. Peeta's hand is on her back. But none of it registers. They are in the hallway. Peeta has questions. They are sneaking through the underground maze of interconnected basements. He wants to know- what did Beetee say? Did you take one yet? Do you feel any different? He doesn't know there are only ten pills. He doesn't know what Beetee told her about the impending fall of District Twelve. What he implied would come after.

It congeals together in her mind- a mush of things that she knows are important but don't fit into a complete picture. Not a picture of anything she wants to see, pulls her into his arms. It's torture, to be held like this. So gently. Her head tucked into his shoulder. His happy sigh in her ear- "You're safe."

She makes herself feel every moment. Memorize the feel of his heart next to hers. Record the details of Peeta Mellark as he is now, so she'll have the strength to do what needs to be done to keep him safe.

He kisses her this time, smiling and sudden, with one arm around her waist and his hand cupping her face. His palm is rough against her cheek, but even this is so precious that she commits it to memory. His were hands that provided care. Food. Safety. They gave and gave without asking anything in return. She would need the memory of their strength in the coming days.

Driven by a desperate impulse to put off the inevitable, she pulls him with her until her back collides with the dusty wall behind them. She wants one more moment. That's all. He's burning on her skin- her lips, her cheek, her neck- every place where they collide, and kissing him feels so good- so incredibly, unbelievably good- that it is unimaginable that she must go the rest of her life without it. Without him.

Then Peeta himself reminds her why she must do what she knows is necessary. He is helping her even now, without realizing it in the least. His hand is sandwiched between the wall and the back of her head. She doesn't notice at first. There are other things she is focused on. But once she does, there is no denying why it's there: to keep her from hitting her head against the wall. To keep her safe.

Little does Peeta know, but it is that small act of act kindness that brings the situation back into focus. Though it makes the empty ache in her heart throb wildly, she admits that the odds stacked against her are too incredible to survive. That her chances of living out the year are too slim. And it's all her own doing. Everything she has done to protect herself and her family has lead to this point. Prim will survive. Rory too. Gale, Hazelle, Vick and Posy. She has given a piece of herself to keep all those that she loves alive. And now she will do it for Peeta too.

With both of her hands tangled in his jacket, she has the perfect leverage to shove him away from her. Shock erupts on his face, and she can hear the pain in his voice already when he says, "Sorry, I didn't-"

"Stop. Just stop."

The words she had expected to come to her when the moment was right escape her now that she needs them most. What could she say to him to make him understand? What words could possibly exist to convey what she felt for him? How much he meant- his kindness, his bravery, his steadying presence- all of it she could name and so much more that she couldn't. Peeta deserves better than what she can give him as an explanation, but her weak fumblings will have to do.

Or not.

_It is better that he live to hate a corpse than disappear loving a memory._

"I don't need you. Not anymore."

 _Liar_ , that same seething voice from before whispers to her. It would be useless to deny that she is. Her numb chest flares to aching life. She hadn't meant to get so entangled in him. Hadn't meant to crack herself open and let him inside.

"Katniss, please don't..."

The look of confusion on his face is too much. Her eyes escape- find anchorage in the seam where the walls meet the floor.

"I'm saying I don't need to do this anymore. To play pretend. For Thread. For you."

She pushes off the wall. Takes her first trembling steps leading away from him.

"All this time. Everything you did. It was, what? A game? Was I just a piece in your game, Katniss?"

His throat sounds tight. She doesn't dare turn around as she walks away, afraid she might do something stupid like run back.

"Survival is not a game, Peeta."

* * *

She doesn't go home. Peacekeepers be damned. Instead, she finds a tree. Climbs until she is so high she can see the where the sky meets the trees over the roofs of the Seam. The world beyond the fence seems so vast from here- and so dark- she can hardly tell where the sky starts and the earth ends.

She takes a deep breath. Lets the warm night air brush her cheeks.

Like a sneeze, it happens all of a sudden and out of nowhere. She's crying and she can't stop, not even to breathe.

* * *

It's the first day  _after_.

The pill sits in her hand and she stares at it long and hard, rolling it around her palm. She puts it back in the bottle. Sinks down onto the couch. Wraps herself in a blanket. She and Prim stay home from school. And she skips work.

That afternoon, she has a seizure and wakes up alone. As she slowly comes back to herself, she thinks of the few times in her life she's woken to find Peeta next to her, how badly she wishes he were here now, but it's such a horrible mistake to think along those lines. Imagining it and not having it leaves a gaping chasm inside of her that  _hurts_ \- even though she knows it's not good to want these things anymore. And then her eyes feel hot and wet so she hides her face in the cushions and decides not to tell Prim about the seizure.

But she is scared enough to take her next pill.

Another day slips by before she finally emerges from her house and treads the path to school with Prim. Her sister knows something is wrong, but Katniss is still lost somewhere in those basements with Peeta, and hasn't managed to find her way back just yet.

In her first class of the day she is digging through her bag to bring out her textbook when her hand brushes the rough paper cover of Peeta's sketchbook. Times passes. How much she doesn't know. Her fingers traces its edges. Her heart races. Her breathing stills. The teacher is staring at her strangely. Talking.

Katniss doesn't know how it happens. One moment she is at her desk, the next, she has walked out of class and the jeers and hoots of her classmates follow her down the hall. She locks herself in a closet. Wedges herself between the pipes and the wall. Only then does she flip the book open. Only then does she trace the lines of his drawings. Like his voice is next to her ear, she hears Peeta explaining each piece. Pointing out where he messed up.

" _See here? This broom? Have you ever seen a broom that large? No really- look. Imagine that person at that desk, but standing. See what I mean? That broom would be like, what, twelve feet?"_

The smile on her face hurts.

She flips the book shut. Curls it into her chest. Closes her eyes.

At lunch, she slips into the stream of students heading into the cafeteria. She finds Thistle not at their usual table and flumps down. Thistle doesn't even spare Katniss a single glance.

_Good. Less questions that way._

"Where's Delly?" she asks.

Thistle frowns into her sandwich and snaps- "She's sick."

She feels like she's fallen through ice into freezing water.

"Sick?" she chokes out.

Thistle glares at her.

"Sick."

"Sick as in-"

"I don't know, Katniss. What other kind of sick would she be? There's only one kind going around right now, or haven't you seen the bodies in the street?"

"Prim says-"

"It doesn't matter!" Thistle yells, her voice cracking slightly it elevates. "It doesn't matter what Prim says, don't you get it?"

Thistle punctuates the end of her outburst by slamming her fist on the table. The cafeteria grows silent and peacekeepers stationed at the doors shift anxiously. They've caught their attention now, but instead of sitting back down, Thistle seems hellbent on inciting some kind of reaction.

"The Capitol wants us dead!" she says. Its not loud, but everyone hears it anyway.

Chaos follows Thistle's words. A wild energy rips through the cafeteria, and tables are overturned as Peacekeepers attempt to subdue the violence. Its no use, though, there are too many students. And they're too angry. Too desperate. Katniss struggles to escape through the cafeteria doors, then runs desperately toward Prim's class, Thistle following not far behind.

Gun shots ring out behind them. A swell of screams echo down the halls. Katniss bursts into Prim's classroom and drags her out as the other students crouch behind desks and the teacher watches in mute horror.

They run out of the school, down the winding path toward the Seam, and don't stop until they reach a dense copse of pines at the very edge of the fence.

"Prim-" Katniss gasps, falling to her knees in front of her sister and checking her over frantically for injuries, "Are you hurt?"

"I'm ok," she squeaks, even though she is trembling visibly.

"I didn't know," Thistle says, her eyes wide and her face pale. "I didn't mean to- I just-"

"What's done is done," says Katniss as she stands. She wipes her sweating hands on her pants and looks around.

Did Rory make it? What about Vick and Posy? Surely they did. Gale would find them. He would keep them safe.

In the distance, they still hear screams carrying down the road from the school.

"Where's Delly?" Prim asks abruptly. "I didn't see her. Thistle, did Delly-"

"She's sick. Didn't come today."

Prim is quiet for a moment. Then-

"What symptoms does she have?"

Thistle turns to her sharply, and for a moment Katniss is afraid she is on the verge of another outburst. But she just pushes her hair out of her face and looks up, blinking furiously.

"Fever. She's um- she's throwing up. Has a cough."

"How many days?"

"Three."

Thistle sounds like she's choking, and Katniss is terrified that she's about to cry until Prim lays a hand on her shoulder.

"Thistle. She's going to be fine. The timeline is all wrong- by now, her hands and feet should be twitching and flexing into weird positions and-"

The world around Katniss suddenly contracts. What Prim is describing is familiar. For whatever reason, it never struck her before, but now, when Prim says it, she realizes-

Of course.  _Of course._

Something that she has forgotten floats back to the surface of her mind- a series of drawings. Unwittingly, Prim has just described one of them. The rest- well, they're a mystery. But they won't be for much longer.

"I can't believe it," she cries in despair. "Sae knew all along- and it was right there, I just didn't put the pieces together-"

"Katniss, what are talking about?!" says Prim.

"Greasy Sae. Her funeral was the day Rory got whipped, remember? She left me a note full of these weird drawings. And Prim, one of them looked like what you just described! She knew this would happen!"

Prim looks at her skeptically.

"How can you be sure? If she didn't say it outright, how do you know?"

"She predicted the fire. And the drought. And then the Capitol's crackdown on the Hob. This must have all happened before- history repeating itself. Only, we don't learn about Twelve's history, do we? Only the Capitol's. But Sae, she was older than everyone. So she doesn't need to be taught. She  _remembers_  that it happened."

Prim's eyes light up.

"I'm sorry, maybe I'm missing something here. How does this help us in the least?" Thistle says.

" _Because,"_  Prim says excitedly, "If Sae knew what the illness was, then maybe she knew how to stop it. Katniss, do you have the note still?"

She frowns.

"No, Commander Thread took it. But I remember what it had in it- five ovals, one colored in black. Feet and hands twisted weirdly- that'd be the twitching, and a face with a scribble on the forehead. Smiling."

"A scribble?" Prim asks. "That could be anything… but what if its confusion? When people have high fevers, they can get confused. Even hallucinate. Whatever it is that's killing off people, they're getting really high fevers."

"Could be," says Thistle, but it sounds like she's not convinced. "What about the ovals?"

The three of them are silent for a minute. The sounds from the school have died down, an ominous sign that makes her shiver. Katniss peers around the trees and sees more Peacekeepers marching forward. They need to move- and fast- or they'll be found.

"Ugh! If only Sae were still around! Or she had written this down!" Prim cries.

"I can do you one better," Thistle murmurs thoughtfully.

"Whatever we do, it has to be now," Katniss mutters.

"Then come on," Thistle says, "follow me."

Thistle is disturbingly adept at navigating the back streets of the Seam. She leads through a winding maze of alleys and backyards, blazing a trail leading west. But when they stop, its in front of a pink house that Katniss knows very well.

"Thistle," Katniss starts, "this isn't-"

It's too late. Thistle's knuckles rap against the front door and in the next moment the door swings open.

"Well, well," says Ripper as she pops the pipe out of her mouth, smoke seeping through the seam of her thin lips as she talks. "Just the girl I wanted to see. Your boy owes me bread, and he ain't been back since last week."

"I don't have your bread," says Katniss as a sharp ache in the space Peeta's flutter left behind squeezes her heart.

Ripper narrows her eyes and snorts.

"Figures."

"We need to see Minoru," says Thistle.

Ripper turns around and rambles back into the house.

"Well don't just stand there. Come in. And shut the door behind you."

The three girls follow Ripper inside to her kitchen, where, to Katniss' surprise, Greasy Sae's daughter sits, completely surrounded by books.

Katniss is startled. She's never seen so many books in one place- especially books that were not Capitol issued. The odd manifesto had passed under her nose at the Hob once or twice. And the  _other_  books- the ones that heavily featured naked petting of some form or another- she did her best to ignore. This thought brings to mind the night she had caught Peeta reading-

Her stomach twists horribly.

Now is not the time.

Sae's daughter gives them a small smile that doesn't reach her large, wet eyes and quickly turns her attention back to the book on the table- where she is using a paintbrush to put glue onto its exposed spine. Though her fingers are short and thick, they move with a surprising dexterity. Katniss had wondered what would happen to her once her mother died. There weren't many people were like her in the District; thick figured despite the lack of food, sloping wide eyes and ears that wilted over like flowers in heavy rain. Gale described her as 'slow', and some of the folks around the Seam had said similar, but never in front of Sae. Katniss isn't sure what to make of the fuss. She's a sweet woman, a little shy, but like Prim, exceedingly gentle and considerate.

As far as Katniss is concerned, that should be good enough for anyone.

"Minoru," Thistle says, "We need your help."

She glances up from her book, a cautious smile stretching across her mouth.

"My help…? With what?"

Her voice is thick, but soft, the words slurring very gently.

"Did your mom ever mention leaving a note for Katniss Everdeen?"

"Katniss… Everdeen… Yes. There is a note. has the note."

"I have the note," says Katniss.

"You're not . You are Katniss?"

"Yes. Did Sae- did your mom say anything about it? Did she explain what it means?"

Minoru looks at her hands and begins to pick glue off her fingers, a blush staining her cheeks. With a slight frown, she bites her lip and jerks her head.

"Mom said the note was for you. Mom said the note was important. Mom said-"

Minoru's eyes widen and she pulls harder at the glue, her breath quickening.

Katniss kneels in front of her, putting her hands over Minoru's.

"Your Mom was really nice, right?"

"Mom was nice, yes."

"She didn't like it when you were sad, right?"

"No, Mom didn't like it."

"Well, I don't like it either. Why are you sad?"

"Mom said… the note was for you. Mom said the note was important. Mom said it was dangerous. The book... The book was dangerous. I don't know… where … I lost the book!"

Minoru's face twists, but before she can get any farther, Prim kneels down next to Katniss.

"That's ok! We can help you look! What did it look like?"

"Hardcover. Coptic bind. Blue thread."

Katniss shoots Thistle a questioning look. Thistle shrugs her shoulders.

"It's the way the book is bound, dummies," says Ripper. "Its sewn together on its spine with blue thread."

Katniss blinks at her.

"Don't gawp at me! You spend enough time with this one and you  _know_  about books. Now get hunting!" says Ripper heatedly.

As they shift through piles of ancient books, it occurs to Katniss that they must be worth a small fortune. How could Sae have afforded them? Each one was at least a week's groceries, and the books that featured sex would be much more than that. Sae must have been buying them throughout her entire lifetime. Only, why? She couldn't even read…

Her fingers brush over an intriguing title- ' _Brave New World'._ She wants to open it, but she resigns herself to focusing on the task at hand.

"Its ok," says Minoru. "It is a good book. You can... look. You don't have... to buy."

Katniss sends her a quick smile, and realizes with surprise why Sae must have bought the books. Minoru could read. These books were for her. They were an investment. To make sure Minoru was taken care of, even if Sae died.

Her throat seizes unexpectedly.

Thistle whistles slowly and holds up a pink and purple copy of a book named 'Rubyfruit Jungle'. Her eyes glitter mischievously as she says "Always wanted to get my hands on a copy of this guy."

Minoru blushes red and angrily grabs the book from Thistle.

"We don't read those!" she snaps, and puts it behind her on the floor, far from Thistle's reach. Prim snickers, but Katniss is deeply happy the Minoru snatched the book from Thistle. She doesn't want Prim reading anything like that. Not until she is eighteen. Or twenty. At least.

"Is this it?," says Prim, holding up what looks like a handbound book. The cover is blue, and so is the binding, but Minoru shakes her head.

"No. It's... not that one."

Prim dumps it back in the pile.

"What about this one?"

This time it's Thistle, and Minoru smiles delightedly. Thistle is holding up a book bound in fingerprint smudged gray canvas- the exact material bought by miners' wives to patch the worn knees and thighs of their husbands uniforms. Its a heavy duty material, not easily manipulated, but it has been used masterfully for this book. Embossed on the front, and only visible at an angle, is the rough outline of the number twelve. The binding is indeed blue- and Katniss can see on closer inspection that butcher's twine has been used to sew the pages together- but the punctures in the thick paper of the pages is outfitted with some kind of tiny washer.  _Grommet._  The word floats through her head unbidden. She'd seen them used large scale on some of the machines used for mining, but had no idea they could be this small.

"Yes! You found it!"

Thistle smirks, then immediately cracks the books open. The heady scents of beeswax and rotting paper fills the room, and Katniss catches a glimpse of a handwritten section of text. Thistle reads the first few lines in the book and pauses, her eyes flickering to Katniss and back down again.

"It's a goddamn poem."

"Not a poem," says Minoru, "A song."

Thistle passes the book to Katniss. The pages are strange- nearly transparent- and thickly coated with some kind of waxen varnish. The writing underneath the coating is childish and cramped, but legible.

" _The firebird is gold and red_

_And sings a song of brown brown bread_

_When the bread turns brown brown brown_

_All the kids fall down down down_

_We twist and turn and then go still_

_Still as stones we lie until_

_The bread turns white and then we play!_

_And the firebird flies far away."_

Katniss looks up from the book in horror. She's heard this song before. She's even sung it playing skip-rope when she was younger.

No wonder Sae had wanted to warn her, the future wife of the only baker in the District. Prim was right afterall. The disease isn't contagious, because it isn't a disease at all.

"They're not ovals," she says. "They're pieces of grain. The Capitol poisoned the bread."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go guys! Chapter 17! Enormous thank you to my beta Opaque, to whom I broke a promise to keep Peeta safe. But, I promised her and I promise you, everything will be ok.


	18. North

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know what? It's none of my business. But….," Thistle clears her throat. "Whatever you did, make sure you can live with it, ok?"

_**xviii.** _

* * *

 

_No wonder Sae had wanted to warn her, the future wife of the only baker in the District. Prim was right afterall. The disease isn't contagious, because it isn't a disease at all._

" _They're not ovals," she says. "They're pieces of grain. The Capitol poisoned the bread."_

The muted plunks of dripping water against the basin of the kitchen sink punctuate her statement. For what feels like aneternity, they are the only sounds in the room besides their quiet breathing.

"That's insane," Thistle breathes.

Thistle and Prim haven't seen what she's seen in the bakery. They don't know about the rebellion, or about Beetee's warning. All they know is that it's happened before, and that Sae predicted it would happen again. Not exactly stellar corroborating evidence. So she tells them everything she saw at the bakery while she worked there- how the tesserae grain was nutritionless, how closely the Capitol watched their stores and how the bakery bread switched from fresh baked to Capitol issued, to coincide with the beginning of the riots.

"It makes perfect sense," Katniss says in bitter finality, "if they only poisoned the tesserae. Prim says its hitting the poorest neighborhoods the worst. All of the people who have gotten sick live with kids of Reaping age. They're targeting the poorest families. The ones they think are behind the rebellion."

"Why?" Thistle says. "What's the point? Those families are starving anyway, its only a matter of time."

Prim blanches in horror, and Katniss knows that she's thinking that not long ago, they too had been dependent on tesserae. If it hadn't been for Peeta, they would still be. Katniss bites the inside of her cheek. What  _was_  the point? That odd feeling is back- the one telling her that everything she needs to understand what is happening she already knows, only she can't fit the pieces together the right way. The picture refuses to complete itself. To make matters worse, exhaustion is eating away at her concentration, and even if she could get her brain to focus, there is only one thing at the forefront of her mind anyway. And it's not a problem that can be solved.

_Peeta._

Shaking her head to loosen her thoughts, she watches as Thistle chews on one of her nails and keeps her eyes locked on the book spread out in front of them on the kitchen table.

"What else does it say?" Thistle says, jerking her head toward the book.

Katniss flips through the next few pages, and the crackle of the sheets of paper separating echoes in the kitchen.

"It's history," hums Minoru without looking up from her task. Her fingers are nimbly applying undyed muslin cotton to a spine, smoothing the edges over with her paintbrush.

Had Sae taught her to do this? Someone had. Her hands move with a practiced ease that suggests she has mastered this skill long ago. Peeta worked like this on his drawings. Quiet. Focused. That other world in his head must entrance him- the one he had shown her a glimpse of that night on the roof.

Everything he said then- had it been something he wished had happened? The amount of detail that went into his story suggested that he did. Or maybe that's just the way Peeta's mind works, creating impossibly beautiful worlds out of the rubble of their own.

She holds her breath as a wave of unreality washes over her. It drags her deep into somewhere airless and dark. Her legs bounce. Her hands are clenched so tightly that her arms tremble. There's a pain in her chest she's only felt once before. It had been an accident when her father was first teaching her to swim. Her hand had slipped from his as he held her in the lake, and, as if she were stone, she immediately sank below the surface of the water. The desperate need to breath, and the knowledge that there was no air to be had- she felt it then as she feels it now. Had she really said those things to him? Could it have been real? It hadn't felt real. But the pain on his face looked real. The terrifying pressure in her chest feels real.

She had said goodbye in the moment her lips had collided with his in that basement, but the memory of him is underneath her very skin, howling like a wounded animal. A heavy groan that starts in her stomach works its way up her throat. Before it can escape her mouth, she bites the inside of her cheek and breathes shakily.

_Will it always feel like this?_

"What do you mean ' _It's history'_?" she says to Minoru. Her own voice feels like its coming from someone else.

"That... The book. The things Mama drew. It's our history. For years and years back."

Katniss pauses, then flips back through the pages. More hastily scribbled drawings. Fire, smoke, more ovals, trees, then stumps, then nothing. Speckled Clouds- dust rising over the Seam? The drawings had a pattern that at first glance looked cyclical, but closer examination revealed that the drawings came in minutely different patterns.

It was a tactic. A strategy they had perfected over time. This wasn't the first time the Capitol had poisoned Twelve. It had happened at least three times more that Katniss could see. She reels a little bit when she realizes the sheer numbers, but there's no mention of a cure. No drawings that showed how it ended. Frustrated, she flips to the back of the book. Nothing. Not even an ending to the events on the previous pages. Just more cryptic scribbles, none showing a healthy human, or medicine of any kind.

"She doesn't say how to stop it," she says.

Prim takes the book from her and flips through as well, her face falling slightly.

"No stopping," says Minoru. "Just… stop the starting. Mama says we only show the book to people who can stop the history. Katniss… can stop it. Mama said."

Sae had been wrong. Even if there was something she could have done, it's too late now.

The firm taps of boot against polished wood echo in the kitchen, announcing Ripper's arrival long before she appears in the doorway. Her hair is askew, her pipe already clutched in her hand.

"Riot at the school today," she grunts, her eyes falling on Thistle and Katniss. "What do you know about that?"

"We left as soon as it started," says Katniss. "We don't know anything."

Ripper glares at her.

"You bringing trouble to my doorstep, Everdeen?"

"No ma'am," Prim says quickly. "We weren't trying to."

"Trying isn't not doing," Ripper answer smartly. "It's not a day to be fooling around. All manner of strangeness going on. Riots in the school, break-ins at the junkyard, Mayor up in a tizzy about his wife... There's enough going on I don't want no part of, and I don't need Peacekeepers knocking down my door looking for delinquents."

That was rich, especially from Ripper. Katniss snorts.

"Something to say girl? I think you'd best git now. You've long overstayed your welcome."

There's a finality in her boots thumping down the stairs leading out of Ripper's house. Sae's book of drawings is under her arm and Prim's bag is slung over the other, but the heaviness she feels has nothing to do with either of these weights. If it was only a matter of time before certain people in the District died, then why would the Capitol poison the Distritct? It isn't like them to waste resources, especially on outlying Districts like Twelve. Surely there were other more valuable Districts that were in greater danger of secession, like Four, which had apparently already managed a successful rebellion. The organization that would have gone into poisoning hundreds of loaves of bread and then distributing them would have been incredible. Why waste that kind of energy on Twelve?

Katniss is so distracted that she hasn't realized that Prim has wandered ahead of she and Thistle, lost in her own thoughts. Should she have told Prim what was happening? The older girl is looking at her contemplatively. Katniss knows that look. It usually precipitates a conversation that's embarrassing and pointless.

"Do you think it's true, what Sae said about you? That you could have stopped this?"

"I don't see how."

"Neither do I. Maybe Peeta could have-"

"He already tried. Almost got himself killed in the process. Sae was wrong. No one could have stopped this."

Thistle is quiet again for a long moment and Katniss can almost hear the gears in her mind turning. She's not surprised at all by what she says next.

"That whole engagement thing... You two made all that up, didn't you?"

Its less of a question and more of statement. Katniss shrugs in a way she hopes is nonchalant.

"You wouldn't know it, the way he acts. That boy thinks the sky and the stars of you," says Thistle, shaking her head.

"No he doesn't," Katniss says. Thistle glares at her.

"Don't do that. We both know better."

Katniss glares right on back.

"He  _doesn't_. Not anymore."

"I sincerely doubt that. What did you do?"

Heat flares in her cheeks.

"What I needed to."

Thistle snorts.

"Another thing I doubt."

"Would you like to weigh in on anymore of my decisions?" Katniss asks snidely.

"No, but, fair warning, Delly plans to have a 'talk' with you. Probably about those same 'decisions'."

Katniss scoffs, but the back of her neck prickles uncomfortably. Why couldn't Delly just leave well enough alone?

"She should be happy. With me out of the way and all."

Thistle jerks her head down and stares at her, dumbfounded.

"Why would Delly want that?"

"You know. She and Peeta…?"

The expression on Thistle's face morphs comically from quizzical to disbelief.

"You think Delly- and Peeta?! Oh honey. It's not an act is it? You really don't know, do you?"

"Don't know what?" she snaps.

"Delly isn't- I mean, its not my place. She should really tell you. But I can't believe- Delly and I are… together. Like.  _Together_  together."

Katniss stands completely still for threefull seconds, mouth agape, blinking stupidly.

"How come nobody ever told me?!"

" _Dude._  How much more obvious could we have made it? What are we supposed to do, make a propo? I bet you'd still be completely oblivious even if you were surrounded by posters that said ' _Unity, Sacrifice and Lesbians.'_ And anyway, there's only one girl Peeta's ever wanted, according to Delly."

"Who?" she blurts before she can stop herself. She should have ended this conversation before it started. There's no possible way it could get any worse.

And then it does.

Thistle laughs.

Katniss twists her boots angrily into the wet, rocky trail. Whatever Thistle is implying she doesn't want to hear for so many reasons, all of them more painful than the last. If there is another girl Peeta wants, why doesn't he find her now? He is free. Absolved of his responsibility for her.

Deadened cold settles in her bones.

There is a warm home waiting for Peeta at the end of this. Yes. She will die. Yes, he might be sad for a bit, but there will be another girl. Katniss tries to imagine her, but she is not Peeta. Her mind is firmly entrenched in the ugliness of their world and can't imagine anything beautiful. Even for Peeta. But she is sure that this other girl will deserve him in all the ways that she doesn't. She will deserve his apple tarts and funny notes. But more importantly she will give him all the things Katniss can't. A home. A family.

 _A future_.

She opens her mouth to say- well, what she doesn't know, anything to distract Thistle from their current conversation- but Thistle is too fast for her.

"Katniss, seriously? It's you. Of course it's you."

But that's no good. No good at all. Because if that were true, then Peeta has loved her for a long time, and it will be harder than she ever thought to erase herself totally from his life no matter what she said to him. Thistle is mistaken. She has to be.

"No. It's not."

Thistle throws her hands up.

"You know what? It's none of my business. But….," Thistle clears her throat. "Whatever you did, make sure you can live with it, ok?"

And there is the crux of the matter. She hasn't done something she can live with. She has done something she can  _die_  with. Peeta will learn to unlove her. He will forget her. He has to.

Anything else is unacceptable.

* * *

The eve of the Reaping, the sky splits open.

Lightning crawls across the night in thin, jagged fissures, and thunder rattles their tiny house down to its timbers. Rain blasts the walls; first a raging fit, then petering out to sullen drippings, only to pick back up again. She and Prim huddle beneath their quilts in bed, watching the storm through their bedroom window.

Though she has assured Prim a thousand times that it won't be her name clutched in Effie Trinket's pinched fingers tomorrow, that doesn't stop Katniss from repeating it. Multiple times. The words are by now so familiar on her tongue that they have nearly lost all meaning, but the reassurances keep spilling from her mouth as if fished out by the spikes in Prim's anxiety.

It's probably to soothe her own anxieties too. Seven pills remain. There are sixty entries of her name this year. And what Thistle told her about Peeta-  _there's only one girl he's ever wanted_ \- rings in her ears like she's hung around the mining machinery for too long.

Have the rebels arrived at the bakery yet? They must have. It's getting late. She thinks about the bakery, where Peeta by now has let the rebels in to reconnect the stove- whatever that will do. She thinks about Peeta alone in his apartment, with no one to assure him that his name will not be called.

Another crack of thunder rattles their little house, and Prim curls closer to her, squeezing her tiny body further into Katniss' arms. Their bed is suspended in a sea of darkness, and it's as though they are the only two souls left in the entire world. But it's fine. They've never needed anyone. She's never needed anyone at all. Only Prim. At the end of the day it doesn't matter who is reaped tomorrow.

As long as Prim is safe, nothing else matters.

There is another crack- only this time, it's on their front door. Katniss untangles herself and rises bleary eyed and distracted, stumbling as she makes her way blindly down the hall and into the kitchen. There's only a few people that could be at their door, and none of whom she wanted to see. For one wild, horrible moment, she's convinced it's Peeta. But she's hardly opened the door before Gale bursts through, soaking wet and shaking rain from his hair like a dog.

"Wet out there," he says, shifting in his wet clothes. He coughs and runs his hand over his face, wiping the water out of his eyes and off his cheeks.

"Gale, what are you doing here?" she asks. The last time she had seen him was two days ago during the meeting with the rebels, where he hadn't even said a single word to her.

"I need to talk to you about tomorrow."

"What about tomorrow?"

"You and Prim ready?"

"We'll be fine."

"How many this year?" he asks.

"Sixty," she breaths.

"Much better than me by a long-shot."

How many did he have? He had faced two more Reapings. That was two more years of collecting Tesserae. Two more years of entries. Whatever his number of entries for this year is, its much worse than hers. But for everything that has happened between them, she doesn't want his name to be called tomorrow. The very thought leaves her cold.

"Don't say that," she snaps.

"Katniss. You know as well as I do that… actually, it doesn't even matter. Listen to me. Tomorrow, no matter what happens, you get away as fast as you can. Get through the fence. We're getting out of here. Going north."

Beetee had told her to do that too. Why was Gale insisting on doing the same thing? What did they know that she didn't?

"If they call me, I'm not going anywhere."

"They won't, ok?"

"You don't know that."

"If they do, break away and run. Get through the fence and wait for me on the otherside."

"This is insane. It's never going to work."

Gale swallows hard and puts his hands on her shoulders, gripping them tightly.

"A long time ago, I promised I would keep you safe. That's what I'm doing."

There are a thousand things that could go wrong, but Gale is standing there bold as daylight telling her just to 'get away' even if she's Reaped. It's stupid. It's suicidal. Gale must know this. There's no possible way he could really believe they could escape, especially not with all the new peacekeepers milling around.

"I won't leave Prim," she says.

"Of course not. Bring her."

"Or Peeta."

Gale pulls away from her.

"We're going to have to move fast, Katniss. We won't have a lot of time."

"A lot of time for what?"

"We'll need to be out of the District and on our way in minutes. We don't have time to pick up stragglers."

"Why? What's going to happen?"

Gale lets out a frustrated groan and spins away from her, stalking toward her door and back again. The look on his face- stubbornly set jaw, steely eyes- means he's not giving up any information easily. He has something planned. Probably has had it planned for a while and, if what Beetee had told her was true, he is using the rebellion and District 13 to help him achieve it. What had he promised them? What interest did they have in making a deal with a seventeen year old boy from the poorest District in Panem?

"Don't worry about it. Just do it, ok? Be there outside the gate. You and Prim."

His face is wild, and his eyes flash between hers, desperately searching for something. Whatever he's looking for he must not find, because his eyes grow harder still. She knows that expression. Gale isn't giving her a choice. Katniss stares at her bare feet on the wood floor. Listens to the rain outside. What he is asking her to do is unthinkable. How could he possibly believe this plan of his will work? She's sure that it won't, but Gale would never admit if he thought the same.

Is he so desperate for the rebellion to succeed that he's gambled her life along with his own?

She swallows and gazes into his eyes, the lie already forming on her lips.

"Ok," she says. "We'll be there."

Besides, Gale isn't the only one who can make promises that are impossible to keep.

* * *

_She dreaming about the smoke again. Its all around her, rushing past her in black rivulets as she trips forward. Its thick around her feet and ankles, almost like water, and she struggles to free herself and continue her way through it._

_Pale faces emerge and disappear. She can just make out their features- Gale. Rory. Thistle. Delly. Prim._

_Something brushes her back and she whirls around. Peeta is standing next to her, his eye blackened. She can smell him- that strange mixture of spice and warmth and something that reminds of her rain and sleepiness. Her heart thunders._

_Her fault. His eye is her fault._

_His hand traces over her shoulder, down her arm, and tangles with hers._

" _Come on. It just butane," he says. He pulls at their hands, and suddenly she's running behind him._

" _Wait!" she screams, "I don't understand!"_

" _We made it ourselves, don't you remember?"_

" _I don't remember! I don't remember anything!"_

_And then she really couldn't remember anything. Nothing but Beetee's instruction- go north._

" _Is this North?!"_

_He lets go of her hand, and with a sad, slight smile, is swallowed by a billow of black._

" _What does North matter if we're all dead?" he says._

" _Wait!" she cries, "Peeta!"_

" _They're reconnecting the stove-"_

_She can hear his whisper, but can't see him._

" _You don't need much force to start the flame-"_

" _Peeta! PEETA!"_

" _Do you understand what they'll do? If they think they'll lose?_ "

She awakens with Peeta's name a gasp on her lips, and an indescribable pain in her chest.

It's still dark outside, but she can't sit still any longer. She tugs on her pants. Pulls on one of her mother's dresses- a tattered grey-blue cotton dress that falls just short of her knees. Her boots pinch as she jams them on her bare feet, and she ignores the pain in her head as she laces them tightly and with trembling, clammy hands. As she double knots the laces, she feels a familiar sting in her eyes.

There's nothing left that she can do. It's over. Today, six days from now, three months from now, what did it matter? Dead is just as dead no matter when it happens.

For the first time, she lets herself feel it. That crushing terror. There's no reasoning with it. No bargaining. Dead is the most permanent thing you can be. She sucks in a breath. It does nothing to steady her.

Dizzy, she drops down onto the bed next to Prim and tries not to shake it too much as she cries. It wouldn't do for Prim to see her this way, especially not when the Reaping is just a few short hours away.

Her sobs fade to soft breaths as the sun rises. Crying is useless. Oddly, this thought calms her. Nothing can change what's coming, and she's glad that, at least, she doesn't have to pretend anymore. She's run completely dry. There's nothing left she can give.

The sun breaks the horizon and an orange glow suffuses the room. Warmth seeps into her feet through her boots from the heat of the light and courses through her body.

When her face is dry, she shakes her sister awake.

Time leaps around in great skips and bounds. She's washing her face, and then her hair is braided around her head in an elaborate style she remembers her mother teaching Prim. She and Prim are eating the last of their greens at the table, then her pill is in her hand.

She almost doesn't remember the trip to the town square, but the buildings pockmarked from Peacekeeper bullets and empty houses they pass on the way are impossible to ignore.

Prim's hand in hers as they line up to be checked in. She holds onto it as they prick Prim's finger with a white, oblong device, and for just a moment, shes afraid she's going to grab Prim and run. Instead, she grasps her sister's hand more tightly and shoves her own hand forward to be pricked.

Those children eligible for the Reaping are separated by age group and then gender. Boys to the left, girls to the right. This means she and Prim are separated from one another before they even start walking to their sections. Katniss holds onto her until the very last second. The blunt end of one of the Peacekeeper's guns nudges her back and Prim makes a small noise in her throat as Katniss is herded away. She smiles in a way she hopes is reassuring at Prim.

"See you soon," she mouths.

She is moved to stand with her age group near the front of the audience with the rest of the older children. Delly stands toward the end of the row, but she hasn't noticed Katniss. Thistle stands ahead of their section, her hands shoved in the pockets of trousers that look like they once belonged to her father and are held up with a tightened belt around her thin waist. Katniss can only see Thistle's back, but the tension rolls off of her in waves. As if sensing Katniss' eyes, she twists around without removing her hands from her pockets. Her face is blank as her gaze meets Katniss'.

Katniss keeps her eyes trained dead ahead. Peeta is somewhere here in the boys section, and she has no intention of seeing him whatsoever.

The air is strange with a charged silence so tenuous it's suffocating. No one even claps when the Mayor takes the stage, but when Effie Trinket, in a dress that seems to be made entirely out of bubbles, follows him up onto the stage, the lack of applause becomes particularly ominous.

Maybe that's why the ceremony starts with little of the previous year's fanfare. There's the Mayor's speech of course, followed by the propo video, but its all very rushed. The cameras filming the event don't pan across the audience, there's little speechifying beyond the requisite recounting of Panem's history, which the Mayor stumbles through with barely a pause.

So it feels very sudden when Effie takes the microphone and says- "Ladies first!", a grin cemented on her heavily made-up face. Katniss holds her breath as Effie digs her hand into the bowl. The tips of her fingers, dyed with some kind of permanent silver ink, close around a slip of paper, and she draws it out from the bowl.

"Primrose Everdeen!"

The silence roars in Katniss' ears as the children surrounding Prim draw away from her, as if being Reaped was contagious. Her sister's pale face fills her vision as she picks her way toward the center aisle.

This can't be real.

Prim stumbles slightly in her boots- the ones that Katniss had bought for her with her earnings from the bakery what felt like a lifetime ago. Their eyes meet. Something is building in Katniss' throat. It's wild and desperate and racing out of her mouth when-

"I volunteer!"

Katniss reels as the words in her throat are spoken by someone else. She can't see who it is, but she vaguely recognizes the voice.

A blonde head separates itself from the crowd, striding toward the center aisle without so much as a look in either direction. A choking sound emanates from the stage. It's the Mayor. And then Katniss realizes something she should have noticed long ago. The Mayor is alone. His wife is nowhere to be found, either on stage, or in the audience.

She swings her head around wildly trying to find her. Everyone is Twelve is required to attend the Reaping. There are only one reasons someone wouldn't.

They are dead.

"I volunteer as tribute!," the voice cries out again, and this time, Katniss can put a name to it.

Madge Undersee.

Effie tries to smile, and twitters something about Madge,  _the mayor's daughter_ , being their first volunteer. Katniss pays it no mind. She rushes forward and grabs Prim, enveloping her in her arms and pulling her back into the crowd where they are just two among many, many more. The only place Katniss can think to hide her from Effie's attention. Away from the cameras and the pitying, jealous or awed expressions from the other people gathered in the square.

She had come so close to losing Prim. She is crying soundlessly, her small fingers digging into Katniss' back. Katniss had been about to take her place. She would have done it, to save Prim. She would have done anything. But it was Madge, of all people, who had kept that from happening. Madge must know she stood no chance. Even as clever as she was, there would be boys and girls trained in a cleverness much crueler than Madge was accustomed to who would find her and slit her throat. She stood no chance against them. None at all.

And yet, she had taken Prim's place. Why?

Breathing heavily, she holds Prim to her tightly, refusing to look up.

She doesn't see Madge on the stage, her eyes bleary and red.

She doesn't see Mayor Undersee's look of horror, or Haymitch Abernathy passed out in a drunken stupor his chair, or Hazel Hawthorne's look of relief. And she doesn't see Effie reaching into the bowl of slips for the boys. But she does hear the name she calls out.

"Gale Hawthorne!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fasten your seatbelts, next chapter is going to be intense. ;) Thank you for being patient with the updates for the last few weeks, as you may know, I've been dealing with some personal stuff and on the road, and had to ease my schedule up a bit. Now I'm home and hoping to get back on track, just in time for the final chapters...
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	19. To The Fence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If she says she’ll meet us on the other side, then she’ll be there. When was the last time your sister broke a promise to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy Trigger Warning For Violence, Gore and Death. Further warnings for state sanctioned violence, violent crowd control tactics, and police brutality. Please be advised that the violence is graphic. If any of this is a trigger for you, please proceed with caution. If you would like to read this chapter, but are concerned that it will trigger you, please message me and I will send you a safe version of this chapter.

_**xix.** _

 

-

 

Behind her eyelids it’s velvet black. Gale’s name echoes in her ears. The scent of Prim’s homemade soap- chamomile and oats- clings to her nose. These are facts she is sure of. Immediate and verifiable.

 

For the moment, nothing else exists.

 

And then, as if her body realizes what is happening before she does, her head snaps up and her lungs heave for air. On the other side of the aisle, boys pull themselves back from Gale’s tall form, but he doesn’t seem to even know that they’re there. He strides toward the center of the square, looking nowhere but straight ahead, and then, directly at her.

 

He mouths the words she knows she would say herself if it had been her.

 

“Keep them safe.”

 

She means to nod but she can’t seem to do anything but gape, her eyes flying from Gale to the platform where Effie Trinket is beaming, obviously pleased that her tributes this year are, at the very least, good looking. And Madge, wide eyes trained on her shoes, but her body as still and as stiff as granite. Her mind catches up as Gale turns his back to her, and she wonders wildly if that will really be the last thing he says to her.

 

Gale is a tribute.

 

This cannot be real.

 

A sound like a whimper escapes her tightened lips. In the silence of the square, she may as well have screamed. Gale jerks his head over his shoulder and looks back at her, his face already the mask of a stranger. In the moment their gazes connect, Katniss knows that the he will do whatever it takes to come home.

 

The hard glint in his eye, mirthless curl of his lips… He is not only prepared to do the unthinkable, he relishes the idea of it. The Capitol has already taken the Gale she knew and twisted him into something unrecognizable. Or maybe this is who Gale really is. Maybe she never knew him as well as she thought she had. Peeta’s words echo in her ears: We get to choose what we do. Its kind of all that we have.

 

Gale turns away. Katniss snaps her mouth shut. She will not cry for him. He wouldn’t want her to show them weakness.

 

If Peeta is right; that who we are is defined by the choices we make, even when there seems to be no choices at all, then what does that mean for Gale? For the first time, what she knows of Gale and what she sees don’t match up. How could he kill and rail against killing all at once?

 

And how did she fit  in all of this mess?

 

The tangled edges of who she is and who he is reveal themselves. Because Gale would never have screamed out her name if she were Reaped, and yet it is only his potential anger that keeps her from screaming for him now. He would never fight to keep someone if he thought he might lose. But she would. She would fight.

 

And so would Peeta.

 

A wail rises up from a tiny voice in the crowd, and Katniss knows without turning her head who it is. Posy’s sobs continue even despite Effie Trinket’s return to the microphone and Hazel’s attempts to quiet the toddler. She wails Gale’s name in a piercing tone through the tiny square. Effie tries to pass it off as Gale having Panem’s ‘tiniest sponsor’, but she’s the only one who laughs.

 

“Listen to the lungs on that one!,” Haymitch slurs loudly from the stage. Effie’s smile is tight and pained. “She’s got more guts than any- than all- every one of you!”

 

He stands up and burps a mouthful of vomit onto his shirt.

 

“When it’s her turn, I bet all you do is pretend she’s already dea-”

 

He weaves, stumbles forward and collapses in a lump over the side of the stage. No one says anything, but Haymitch has made his point. She doesn’t know why she turns her head back to the boy’s section. Doesn’t know why her eyes find Peeta as if they knew where he was all along. And she certainly has no idea why his hand is in the air until she sees the three fingered salute he’s making.

 

Her heart stutters to a stop.

 

He must have a death wish. He must be insane. Her eyes fly over the crowd in panic as more hands join his. Why is he doing this? Doesn’t he know what will happen? The salute spreads like a virus through the assembled people, hands rising and fingers proud against the blue sky. She tries to wrench herself forward but Prim grabs her.

 

“Stay! Stay with me!” she cries, her small fingers digging into Katniss’ arms. Prim feels it too then- the energy, the anger.

 

Thread is already ordering peacekeepers forward. They position their weapons in front of them, the brushed steel of the muzzles glinting in the summer sun. Light dances in her eyes and her hands scramble in Prim’s hair to cover her head completely and she twists them so her back is to the guns pointed directly at them.

 

Muzzles flare at the edge of her vision and their blasts echo in the enclosed space. Effie Trinket trips offstage, surrounded by armed peacekeepers. Madge and Gale are lifted off their feet and carried backwards kicking and screaming into the Justice building, where the doors close behind them with a shuddering crack.

 

Katniss huddles over Prim, twisting around frantically as the crowd around them mills in terror, knocking into them and throwing them backward. They don’t even have enough space to fall, crushed as they are between the other girls. She can’t run. Even if she could, where would she go? The exits have all been blocked. There’s nowhere to climb, nowhere to duck behind, nowhere to hide underneath. There’s no escape.

 

A cry rises from the boy’s section. The older section of boy- some are already sporting bloodied faces- rushes a line of peacekeepers. Their blood transfers in dark smears to the white of the Peacekeepers uniforms and guns, which in close quarters are useless for anything other than blunt force trauma. Through brute force alone the line of Peacekeepers is broken.

 

And that’s when smoking cannisters are thrown into the center of the square. There is a secret pain or death awaiting in the plume of white that rises from the ground, and with a cry she yanks Prim further backwards. The crowd draws back from the smoke, screams escalating in volume, and as they do, Katniss sees Rory struggling forward, her name issuing from his mouth, but his voice lost in the chaos.

 

He doesn’t have to wait long for his path to clear, however. Thistle rushes into the vacuum that has opened in the center of the square, grabs the wrist of a peacekeeper whose gun is in Rory’s face and slams her elbow into his while yanking backward. The resulting crack of the Peacekeeper’s bone can be heard over the screaming, and there’s a sickening moment of horror before a cheer rises up and the girls break their own line to rush the peacekeepers. Thistle, tall and broad as she is, moves against the flow of the girls toward the smoking cannister and lobs it easily over their heads and directly back into the line of oncoming Peacekeepers, who scatter.

 

It’s an opening. Thistle has given them a chance at escape. Katniss grabs Prim and shoves her way through the crowd and the Peacekeepers. They break out of the square, breathing heavily, a red-faced Rory with streaming eyes close behind, followed by Thistle and a shaking Delly.

 

“I can’t,” Katniss gasps, her hand clutching Prim’s but her feet moving her backward. Her head is shaking from side to side slowly, her eyes wide and dark. “I can’t- I- Prim, you run for the woods, ok? You get there, and you stay, and I’ll be there- but I can’t- Rory, you take them there. Get them to the other side and wait for me.”

 

“Don’t leave me!”

 

For the second time today, Prim’s cry tears at her heart.

 

“I have to.”

 

“Katniss don-”

 

“We don’t have time for this,” Thistle cuts in.

 

Delly grabs Prim’s hand.

 

“If she says she’ll meet us on the other side, then she’ll be there. When was the last time your sister broke a promise to you?”

 

“But-”

 

An eruption of screams and gunfire interrupts them. Prim’s face whitens, and the hair on the back of Katniss’ neck stands up. But she refuses to let her fear take root.

 

“Prim. I’ll be there.”

 

The lie comes easily. They will kill Peeta for what he did. She can’t let them.

  
She races back into the square and directly into a rolling cloud of white smoke. A black glove closes around her arm and yanks her to the side, and she loses her footing, her eyes flashing upward. The skin on her face erupts in pain, and the last thing she sees before her eyes slam shut is the dark shadow of a flying camera pack overhead.

 

Someone, somewhere, is watching.

 

-

 

She is not on fire.

 

But that’s what it feels like.

 

One of her hands claws her face, the other tears at the iron grip of the hand around her arm. She curls her body inward, trying valiantly to shield herself while her feet kick against the pavement. The hand on her arm yanks her upright but she can’t get to her feet before she's dragged onward.

 

It burns in her nose. In her throat. On every inch of her skin. She can feel moisture leaking out of her eyes and down her face, but no matter how they water the burning doesn’t stop. It’s everywhere, inside and out, and her throat is so raw she can hardly recognize her own screams.

 

The hand releases her and she drops leaden and heavy onto her side, her hip and shoulder cracking against cement. She curls into a ball, covers her head with her hands and breathes heavily through her mouth. How long she stays like that- rubbing at her face with hands that burn as badly as her eyes- she doesn’t know. It’s long enough that the pain fades. Long enough that the moisture on her faces dries.

 

Muted pops of gunfire still echo in her ears, but she doesn’t dare open her eyes. The shadows of more flying cameras pass over her, and she only knows because she can hear them buzz as they pause and drop low to capture images of her crumpled form. In the distance, she can hear more screaming. More cries for help. More guns. Heavy boots marching in step against the paved ground.

 

A hand curls in her hair and yanks her up to her feet. Her eyes fly open, raw and still watering, to discover the she has been left on the floor in front of the justice building. Her fingers claw at the hand in her hair, and she is thrown forward. The peacekeeper behind her shoves the tip of his gun into her back.

 

“Walk!” he barks.

 

She does. He directs her forward past someone on their knees with their hands behind their back, head tilted toward the ground.

 

The cold muzzle of the gun presses into her scarred temple and the one at her back disappears.

 

“Don’t move. Do you hear me? Don’t even fucking breathe. ”

 

Thread. She’d recognize that clipped, cold voice anywhere.

 

She nods.

 

“ARE YOU STUPID? I SAID DON’T MOVE!”

 

She bites her lip and feels her jaw trembling through it.

 

“I won’t,” she whimpers.

 

“Do you want to live?”

 

She nods before she can think.

 

“DO YOU WANT TO LIVE?” he roars.

 

“YES!” she cries.

 

He shoves a gun at her.

 

“THEN SHOOT!”

 

She’s only ever been on the other side of the barrel. She’s not even sure how to aim.

 

Her eyes fly toward the person on their knees in front of the bakery. She probably knows this person. Has known them all her life.

 

“GODDAMMIT I TOLD YOU TO SHOOT THAT FUCKING TRAITOR!”

 

“Katniss. Just do it.”

 

“Peeta?” she whimpers. The gun shakes violently in her hand.

 

Another peacekeeper rushes forward and cracks him on the side of the head with a baton. But even as he flinches, his blue eyes never leave hers. His hair is matted with dirt and blood, his cheek swollen and purpling. But it’s Peeta, and he’s alive.

 

“I SAID SHOOT HIM!”

 

She fires the gun twice.

 

-

 

A strange whistling tickles her inner ears.

 

She’s never used a gun before. For a moment, she’s afraid that they’ll make her shoot again.

 

Peeta’s head cracks against the pavement. He is still. Coldness creeps into her bones. She needs to scream but there’s not enough air in her lungs. A sound like a whine is creeping up her throat and she can’t stop it.

 

“I knew you were a smart girl,” Thread says, and the whistling grows louder.

 

This can’t be real.

 

The other peacekeeper turns his head and surveys the square expressionlessly. Thread continues on as if he can’t hear it.

 

“Too smart to let yourself get killed.”

 

She tries to respond but all that comes out of her throat is a choking sound. The whistling is now sharp and shrill, and Thread finally yanks his head over his shoulder, his eyes widening. He realizes where the sound is coming from. But it’s already too late.

 

He whips his head back to her, face contorted in rage and she knows that he’s finally put all the pieces together. What happens next is blur. Peeta launches himself off the ground and pushes her down, his hands clapping over her ears, tugging her face into his chest and throwing his own body over hers. The gas tank outside of the bakery blasts apart in a billow of flame and black smoke, but cradled against Peeta’s chest, with his hands over her ears, all she knows of the explosion is a blast of hot air, a wave of something - like pressure and electricity in the air, and the shudder of the ground beneath her back.

 

Time slows to a crawl. The world is thick and dark like she’s underwater.

 

He’s not dead. He’s very much so alive, and the proof is right on top of her.

 

She missed him after all, and clever Peeta had figured out her game to hit the butane tank. She opens her eyes again when he rolls off her and collapses on his side, his eyes screwed shut as he breathes heavily and presses his forehead into the ground. Is he hurt? She tries to sit up but her head swims and she drops it back down. The ground beneath her doesn’t feel like it’s even there. All of her limbs are numb and weightless. Her breath echoes loud in her head.

 

Black pillars of smoke tower into the blue sky. Camera lenses wink in the sunlight.

 

Her thoughts grow muddled. The cameras direct their vacuous gazes somewhere to her left. She turns her head to follow them. Thread is collapsed on the ground and trying to pick himself up. The other peacekeeper is too still. Overhead, the camera flashes over the fallen commander and peacekeeper. Why would the Capitol want to broadcast something like this? What game are they playing?

 

“Peeta-,” she slurs, “get up.”

 

He doesn’t even open his eyes.

 

“Peeta?” she says again. “Come on. Come on. Get up.”

 

Still nothing. Didn’t he hear her?

 

Thread staggers to his feet and his hands scrabble at his belt only to discover his empty holster. He hasn’t noticed she and Peeta yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Her eyes are magnetized to the leak of blood trailing out of Thread’s ear, down his neck and dripping over the dusty white chest plate of his uniform. The dirt and debris coat the ground and his gun, but her eyes light on it not even a foot away from his searching hands.

 

Palms and fingers planted in the ashes of what was once the bakery, she pushes herself to her feet and throws herself at Thread, colliding with his turned back and sending him stumbling down to the ground. She falls with him, landing heavily on his armor’s backplate. All the air is knocked out of her but she tries to regain her footing anyway. It’s a mistake. Thread uses her momentum to roll them until she’s the one on the ground, his arm crushing her throat.

 

Her palms slaps his face. Her nails dig trails in his cheeks. She kicks her legs and jerks her body to try to throw him off, but he only pushes his arm further into her throat. A two-pronged vein pulses on his forehead, and his eyes narrow in concentration. Spots dance in her vision.

 

And then Thread is gone. She rolls onto her hands and knees, choking for air. As the spots clear from her eyes, she sees Peeta flip Thread onto his back and pin one of his arms by his head. His other scrambles toward the gun he had lost when Katniss hit him. She pushes herself to her feet. Staggers over to where Peeta has Thread pinned. Slams the heel of her boot down on his fingers.

 

She doesn’t flinch when the bones crunch under her shoes. Doesn’t flinch when she slams the front of her steel-toe boot into Thread’s skull.

 

Once.

 

Twice.

 

She goes for a third, but Peeta catches her ankle and shakes his head. Breathing heavily, her face twists into a grimace and her eyes water. A tear races over her cheek and she rubs it away as her teeth grind into one another. Thread is completely still, his eyes closed. But he’s still breathing, and suddenly she’d like nothing more than to crawl somewhere warm and dark and stay there until everything makes sense again.

 

Until the world stopped crumbling all around her.

 

Peeta rises slowly to his feet, and before she can ruin anything by opening her mouth, she takes his face between her hands and kisses him. She hates how her lips tremble. Surely he can feel it. Her fingers slide along his jaw to tangle in his hair, drawing him closer. His response is immediate and fervent, his own hands sinking in the mess of her braids.

 

How stupid she had been to think she could ever have really wanted Peeta to truly hate her. How selfish is she now to want him this badly? She shouldn’t be doing this to him. He deserves better. But his skin is warm and dusty. And he smells the same under the blood and ash- like spice, and sweat, and soap. There’s no guilt in the world that could make her deny the safety in his arms now. No regret deep enough to make her ignore her gnawing ache for the warm, impulsive something only Peeta knew how to stir inside of her.

 

Is there a way to move backward from here? To unknow this feeling? If she could forget it entirely she would. Her worst fear is that its potential had always been there, just underneath the surface of her skin. And it’s so easy to forget it’s threat when he tilts his head just so, and the thrill of his tongue sliding against hers is the only thing that exists in the world.

 

Her decision not to sentence him to her death was something she had done in one of her strongest moments. ‘I don’t need you.’ It’s a beautiful thought, but beautiful isn’t practical. She does need him, for the very reason she always thought she would never need anyone at all.

 

‘There are no limits to what I would do to ensure my family’s survival.’ Another beautiful thought, and just as wrong. Peeta knew her limits even when she didn’t. Knew she would careen past them. Time after time he stopped her from making the kinds of decisions that would break her beyond what could be fixed. The bread. The fire. Cray.

 

And now Thread.

 

She would have killed him. She wouldn’t have meant to. But one more kick could have done it, and where would she have been if her boot had gone through his skull? Light headed, she breaks the kiss and tries to breath.

 

Her throat aches so badly.

 

“Katniss,” he says. “I can't just-”

 

“I needed you safe,” she rasps, drawing him closer again. “I did what I had to.”

 

He smoothes his hands over the wild mess of hair that had once been a beautiful styling of braids and melts against her, dropping his forehead to hers.

 

“Katniss, I can’t-”

He shakes his head.

 

“I can’t hear you. I can’t hear anything.”

 

Then he definitely doesn’t hear that second explosion on the other side of the Merchant district.

 

-

 

From what she can gather, the District is exploding all around them. Rolling clouds of smoke have obscured the sky above entirely, and her nose and bruised throat burn from the toxicity that hangs in the air. She tugs the neck of her now ragged dress over her nose as she leads Peeta through the copses of trees on the outlying paths of the District to avoid town. He can’t hear the explosions, but she can. She hasn’t told him what’s happening, but her flinching at the explosions is no longer something she can control.

 

Finally Peeta stops her.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

She tries to answer, but he still can’t hear and isn’t reading her lips properly. There’s one word he does seem able to recognize though. Sketchbook.

 

He pulls a tiny one out of his pocket, and a pencil out of his other. In the little book, she explains.

 

“Wait. What do you mean ‘explosions’?”

‘Like the bakery,’ she writes.

 

“But the rebellion rigged that to explode,” he says in horror. “Do you think-”

 

‘I don’t know.’

 

Because rightly, she doesn’t. This isn’t the Capitol’s style. Too much destruction. But there’s no time to theorize, because Prim is waiting for her, and with Peeta safe, there’s a chance she could actually keep her promise to meet her.

 

“Well, ok then. What’s the plan?”

 

‘Get my bow.’

 

They arrive at her house in record time. She gathers her pack, the bow Gale made, her knife, and whatever food is left in the cupboards. From her bedroom, she grabs a sheet and throws a pot and the quilt she and Prim made together in the center. She brings it to her mother’s room, tossing it on her bed, and then pauses. Peeta trails in, already shouldering her game bag, and watches as she throws open the drawers of her mother’s chest. As she rifles through her dresses she tosses them unceremoniously to the floor. Something papery flutters out. Her parents’ wedding photo. More dresses hit the ground. A loud thunk is her father’s plant book. She puts the photo in the front of the book and tosses it into the sheet on the bed.

 

When she turns around, Peeta is holding up one of the dresses thoughtfully. It’s a soft, orangey pink. He’s almost embarrassed to be caught holding it, but she’s not sure why. It’s not like their her dresses. And anyway they’re just fabric- soon to be just the ashes of fabric.

 

“It’s pretty,” he mumbles, his hold on it loosening.

 

She takes it from him and throws it into the pack, along with a blue polka-dot one Prim always loved. The sheet and its cargo get rolled up and then tied behind her neck. As she adjusts it, she throws an arm through the bundled loop it makes around her. It’s light. Good. She can still run if she needs to.

 

The hallway seems darker than ever. The front door is dirtier. The hinges, squeakier.

 

She finally breathes when she is on her porch. More pillars of black smoke stretch into the sky than there had been before. Ash drifts like snow flakes, coating everything in a dusty layer of white cinder. Peeta steps out into the light and he shuts the door behind him. She fumbles with the little notebook he gave her and scrawls out ‘Say goodbye to District Twelve. We’re going through the fence.’

 

-

 


	20. Pine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn't know where to look so her eyes won’t tattle to Peeta that she won't believe Prim is alive and whole without seeing her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for Gore, and non-explicit mentions of violence and death.

_**Trigger Warning for Gore, and non-explicit mentions of violence and death.** _

* * *

_**xx.** _

* * *

The wooded outskirts of District Twelve were infamous.

Not nearly as infamous as the slag heap of course, but that was because they lacked much of its glamor, and as a result town folk tended not to go there. Over the years they had served as both a dumping ground for trash and industrial chemicals from the mines, as well as a refuge for those looking to do the kinds of things best done in the dark.

Reason enough for Katniss to avoid those woods at all costs.

Still, there were times she had been desperate and had waded through the debris and stench that clogged those trees to seek out a dark space of her own. When the fence was on and she needed to carve new arrows. When her rabbits hadn't sold before spoiling and she needed to skin them before the rancid meat took the pelt with it.

It had been Gale who had shown her this part of the District, but he never told her what these woods were actually used for. She found out by accident one afternoon as she hurriedly attempted to hack the pelt off a winter rabbit so scrawny it had more bones than meat. The sunlight that danced through the leaves overhead lit on a bare mattress, and she paused in her work, intrigued and mystified by its presence.

Initially she wondered who in their right mind would want to sleep out here, considering all the other places there were in the District to squirrell yourself away. But just a moment later she heard laughter, and a second deeper voice talking in low tones, and finally she put two and two together. This was the place older kids from the Seam went to-

She packed her rabbit so fast she nearly forgot to grab her knife before she stumbled away.

The way Gale laughed when she brought it up told her that this was his plan all along.

"Aw c'mon Katniss," he had said as she stalked off. "Don't be like that..."

"You set me up!," she snapped.

"No, no c'mon. I didn't. But- how could you seriously not know?"

"Gale, I don't have  _time_  for that kind of thing!"

His smirk faded and his eyes flickered down to his hands. He cleared his throat.

"You could, you know. If you wanted to."

She hadn't gone back to those woods since.

Until she has to drag Peeta there to get to the fence.

Bombs continue to rattle the ground and light up the smoke-darkened sky, painting the trees as dark silhouettes. It wouldn't make sense to lace the trees here with bombs. They wouldn't kill anyone, and certainly a building exploding is more exciting for audiences than a group of scraggly pines. Thus it's the only safe passage she knows of to get to the fence.

As they pull around the bend of the beaten path that leads to the outskirts of the district, Katniss grabs Peeta's wrist to slow him and points to her eye, then towards the area in front of them.  _Stay alert._  With the rains and warmth of the summer, the heavy undergrowth that withered and died last year has returned full force, and much of what lies ahead is hidden by thick foliage. With the darkness of the sky and the thickness of the brush, Peeta isn’t just deaf, he’s blind too. They both are. Katniss fumbles to get her bow out of her pack.

_Not her bow. Gale's._

He would sure be proud of his handiwork now. She wonders if in the back of his mind he had always meant for her to use it in the rebellion he himself was orchestrating. If it was just another of his traps.

But it's  _so useless_  to think about that now, because by the time she and Peeta make it to the fence they are already too late. Bodies litter the ground- peacekeeper and District citizen alike- and the fence lays trampled and broken in the dirt. The large metal box that Gale had always suspected housed one of its power sources had been battered open with some kind of heavy tool that left its frame warped and its door swinging gently in the breeze. The door's movement caught her eye. All of that lost purpose hanging on a broken hinge.

Strewn along the ground were an oddball collection of items: peacekeeper's guns, a single ragged shoe, a wet, muddy bedsheet and a leather toolbelt that Katniss recognized as coming from the mines.

It was a battleground. Or what was left of one at least. And an arrow stuck in the last standing fence post like some kind of flag.

And Prim is nowhere to be found. Neither is Rory, Delly or Thistle.

Katniss yanks out the arrow buried in the fence post and grips it tightly in her fist. It hasn't been treated with oil yet. It's just raw wood, red string and a sloppily shaped turkey feather. Gale's materials for his fletchlings, but not his handicraft. Seeing his signature style of arrow recreated so amateurishly is like falling backward through time. Or maybe everything just feels like she is falling.

And that's when she sees the little scrap of paper tied to the arrow. In cramped, boyish handwriting it just says ' _North'._

If she finds Rory Hawthorne, she's going to kill him.

But that's really the whole problem. If she finds him.  _If._

"If she's not here, she's safe," Peeta says. "Rory made the right call."

His hand closes around her fist and lifts her fingers off the arrow. Blood rushes back to her knuckles as he slides it into her sheath. She flexes her hand and feels the bones in her fingers crack. He's right, of course. Rory made a good call leaving before they got here. She would have done the same thing in his position.

But that doesn't mean she's ready to admit it. All she understands is that Prim isn't with her, and she has no idea where she really is except the vague direction of North.

Because Rory left without them.

She wants to scream. She wants to cry. She wants to curl into a ball under the tree until the weakness leaves her knees and the spots clear from her eyes. Or until Rory decides he's an idiot and brings Prim back to exactly the place where they should be waiting.

But that's not going to happen. Rory is too smart for that, and he'd never put Prim in a position where she might get hurt. Even only hypothetically. He lacked so much of his brothers audacity. His was a more level headed kind of protective.

"We have to find them," she says, unnecessarily. Peeta knows this already, but he lets her babble anyway, even though he can't hear her. Because he's Peeta and if anyone knows what she needs when her world is crashing down around her ankles, it's him.

"Hey, she's safe. The best thing that Rory could have done was to keep moving. What happened here- you don't want Prim to be anywhere near that. He's smart. He's gonna keep her safe."

She doesn't know where to look so her eyes won't tattle to Peeta that she won't believe Prim is alive and whole without seeing her. That she never feels safe herself unless she knows for sure that Prim is safe. And while Rory is the only person in the entire world besides from herself she'd trust to keep her sister alive, she can't stop the horrible images racing through her mind.

Prim scared. Prim hurt. Prim dead. All because she wasn't actually here to prove it wasn't true. For all they knew, she could already be-

Peeta's hands cup her cheeks and tilt her face upward.

"Katniss - breathe - Prim's safe. He's not going to let anything happen to her. We're going to find them, ok?"

Finally her eyes meet his. There's a ring of lighter blue around his pupils she's never noticed before. Like his pupil has mistakenly eclipsed what should be nothing more than clear blue iris. Peeta wouldn't lie to her. He is honest. Always. If he didn't believe what he was saying she'd see it written in those eyes. She feels her muscles slackening, and her hands come up to grab his wrists. His truth is here too: bare wrists where she she can feel warm skin and ridged scars, and somewhere underneath her fingertips, the shape of a willow leaf.

"Ok? She's safe. We're going to find them."

She nods, but he doesn't let go of her. Which is good because Peeta's hands are the only things that feel steady and safe right now, and she's not sure she's ready to give an ounce of that up.

But she needs to.

The muzzles of the peacekeepers guns are cold. They're already hours behind when Rory would have cleared their little group out, and dusk will be here soon. If she wants to catch up to them, there's no time to lose.

As she and Peeta slink away from the fence, she refuses to think about who they leave lying there. Prim is safe and waiting for her. That's what she needs to focus on. That's all that matters. So she means to look away from the bodies as she passes them because there are sure to be familiar faces pressed into the mud, and she doesn't want to know the names of those she's leaving behind. They'd just hang there in her brain for the rest of her life, and it is better to lose 'everyone but' than 'everyone, including'.

Gale would say it was a price that had to be paid for freedom.

But that's not what she feels when she sees the peacekeeper who brought her to Peeta when she had been sick at school. His face is swollen and strangely still, but familiar nonetheless, and because of that she almost expects his eyes to jerk open. But they don't. As she walks by she tries to look away from the gaping cave in the back of his skull, but it's too late. The image has already burned itself into her mind. She yanks her head forward, her eyes darting toward the sanctuary of the trees in front of them. Peeta is watching her, and his mouth opens as if to say something, but he snaps it shut and simply reaches his hand back for hers.

They slip into the dark stillness of the forest quickly and quietly, leaving the ash and corpses that once made up District Twelve where they lie.

They travel north until the light starts to fade. By that time she's so tired she can hardly see straight, let alone keep track of Rory's trail. Finally, too exhausted to continue, she leads them to a nearby clearing. Every year as winter ended she and Gale came here with a mixture of manure, fish guts and cinders to keep the soil rich. As a result, the grass is fuller and greener here than anywhere else in the forest, and each summer the area blooms with edible plants.

Tonight she can smell them in the air- dark, rich blackberries, sun-warmed blueberries, tiny raspberries crawling along the ground, fresh mint, crisp spring onions...

Any other time her mouth would be watering. Not tonight.

She sets about gathering food mechanically as Peeta unpacks their blanket and pot. After only a small meal that morning and hiking all day, she knows she needs to eat. Moving too fast makes her lightheaded, and her hands are shaking. But her stomach is tight and hard and thinking about food only makes it worse.

In the middle of trying to choke down a blueberry (which does nothing to inspire her hunger), she smells smoke. She whirls around to find Peeta hunched over a tiny flame, the lighter on the grass beside him.

"Peeta! No!"

They are safe in the woods, but unless they are careful that could easily change. Peacekeepers would find them, or something else in these trees would. No reason to give them a beacon to follow right to them. She kicks out the fire. Peeta looks at her in shocked anger, but as she scribbles out  _"the light- they'll find us"_ in their sketchbook, his eyes widen with realization.

"So what we need to do is hide the light."

' _No- what we need to do is not light fires.'_

He frowns as if he's about to argue but before he can start, she turns away with the pot to continue gathering what food she can find, too tired to talk about it any further.

She tries again to tempt her stomach this time with a raspberry, but that doesn't have any effect either. The only thing that tickles her fancy is an onion, but it needs to be cleaned with water and they're running too low on that for her to waste any. Tomorrow they'll need to veer slightly west to reach the river that runs at the outermost edge of her knowledge of the forest. After that, they'll be in unfamiliar territory.

And so will Rory.

She drags her pack against a tree, then sinks down to rest her back on it. Something pokes her neck and she rifles through the bag to adjust it. As she does, her hand lights on the sketchbook she stole from Peeta's studio what felt like a lifetime ago.

All his paintings. That room full of books and inks and sketches. Gone.

She yanks the cord of her bag shut and pushes it out of her way, resting her head on her hand instead. She had left the pot of food untouched next to Peeta. Luckily she's asleep before he can start fussing.

* * *

Smoke.

She jolts awake, expecting darkness but finding that the sun hasn't even fully set. She smells fire and pine, and she struggles to unwrap herself from a quilt she didn't remember falling asleep under.

"Peeta?," she rasps. Her throat feels horrible. Thread had done more damage than she expected. The broad expanse of Peeta's back is faintly silhouetted in front of her, but he doesn't turn around when she speaks. Smoke and heat curls around him in fragrant clouds, which warms the newly bared skin of her arms. As it blows away, she realizes that

the storm the night before has sent the temperatures plummeting, and it will only get worse once the sun has completely set. She moves to stand and Peeta jerks around, revealing a cylinder of glowing rocks.

Curious, she steps closer.

No, the rocks aren't glowing, something behind them is. He's built another fire, but this time he's hidden it behind carefully stacked rocks and topped it with a final flat stone. The rocks themselves seem to glow both with heat and light from the fire, which Peeta has disguised as being natural by burning pine needles as well. They're also the driest, easiest burning thing in the forest right now. It's a very clever idea- the kind of thing only someone who has spent a lifetime cajoling a faulty pilot light would think of.

The light leaking out from the crevices is so low that it barely touches the trees around them, but they catch on Peeta's face nonetheless. The shadows on his cheeks sway as he stubbornly sets his jaw, prepared to defend his fire this time around.

She throws half of the quilt over his shoulder and settles down next to him. The heat from the fire licks at her cool skin and she closes her eyes gratefully. Her head drops to his shoulder, and she's just about to reconsider those berries when Peeta speaks.

"I don't understand you."

Her eyes fly open and slide to his face, but there's not enough light to read his expression.

"I wish you'd just tell me what it is that you really want from me."

Something that feels like a fist clenches around her heart.

Of all her cruelties, Peeta has been her worst to date. He deserves an answer; to know everything. The problem is she doesn't know it all herself. What she wanted and what she could say out loud were two different things entirely.

So she doesn't have an answer for him, not a good one in any case. Because either it was all real or none of it ever was, and she's afraid she knows which one is the truth. Then the only real question becomes  _how long_  it had been that way, and the answer to that lies somewhere that feels strangely like betraying Gale. And then the questions run around and around in her head because she had never felt that way about Gale, but in other ways she had believed she wouldn't survive losing him.

But she  _had_  lost Gale, and only physically at the Reaping. For a moment her chest aches so badly she's sure she's never going to breathe again.

And then her lungs inflate.  _Why isn't she broken?_  After the fire, when she hadn't been sure if Peeta had survived or not, his name was the only thing in her head. She didn't even  _know_ him and losing him had been unthinkable. Or it was unthinkable because she  _did_  know him. He was the type of person who would risk a beating to throw bread to a starving girl in the rain. Maybe that was all she needed to know.

Peeta is different than Gale. Gives her something Gale somehow can't. Gale wanted to take care of her. Wanted her to need him.

But she can take care of herself. And as for need…

Peeta hadn't asked for the answers she didn't know. He hadn't asked for the explanation she doesn't have. He only asked her what she wanted from him. She picks up her pencil and scribbles out the truth.

His eyes are wide as he reads the words, and when they dart up to her face she is  _gone_.

There's no way she could misconstrue the way he's looking at her, but she still doesn't expect him to actually want to touch her. He gently, almost hesitantly, tilts her head but it still feels sudden and breathless when he leans forward to ghost his lips against hers. Maybe it's because she never expected to get to really kiss him again, or because all those times before had been in the middle of something that involved distractions like death or fire.

This time, there is nothing but Peeta.

The way he touches her. The sounds he makes.

Her body knows the depths of pain and hunger- their different shades and forms, how they mixed together, how they look on her face. On other people's. They are as familiar to her as her own hands, as real as the ground beneath her feet.

But  _this._

This is something entirely new. Who knew that her same hungry, tired body could also be capable of feeling something so incredibly  _good_? It starts where he touches her and radiates out from there, spreading a warmth that has nothing at all to do with the quilt wrapped around them. It's confusing and overwhelming the way her skin prickles in anticipation of his touch. Her arms. Her shoulders. The nape of her neck. Down her spine and the back of her ribcage. Like a shiver that goes on and on.

How they end up lying twisted together under the quilt is as lost to her as the tie that bound her braids. She feels the loosening of her hair as it unwinds and falls to the ground. It will be a mess tomorrow, but she doesn't care. When the sun rises, tomorrow all the things that haunt her will follow, but tonight Peeta wants to kiss her and she's going to let him.

* * *

Come daylight they hike north following Rory's trail. He'd left subtle clues behind for them- an arrowhead, piece of red string tied in a bow around a branch- but Katniss doesn't know if it's because he really believes they're following him or because he just hopes they are. Either way, they're gaining ground quickly, and Katniss has another good reason to hurry besides finding Prim. The pill bottle in her pack is more than halfway to being empty, and every step she takes she can hear its faint rattle.

They veer west early into the morning to refill their water supply. The stream she takes them to bubbles up from a fresh spring not far from here, and is the safest supply of water she knows of. There are signs everywhere that Rory took the rest of the survivors here: matted grass, footsteps in the mud, fruit pips and another red string, this time with a note tied to the end.

' _Due straight North from here.'_

She pockets the note and hurries to the stream, intent on setting out as soon as possible. They've reached this campsite well before noon, which means they have gained time on Rory. If they hurry, they may catch up as early as tomorrow.

After refilling their only canteen she spins her finger in a circle, asking wordlessly for Peeta to turn around. When he does she wades into the stream, tugging her dress over her head and rinsing it quickly in the clear water. She takes a moment to clean as much of herself as she can without drenching her pants. She's just about to throw the dress back on wet when she remembers the extra one she packed.

She pulls that on instead, and hangs her wet dress over the back of her bag to dry as they continue. Peeta's eyes widen when he sees what she's wearing, and he grins but says nothing. They're eating a lunch of berries and some greens she's plucked along the way when he says it.

"You're beautiful."

She doesn't know what to say so she says nothing at all and stares at her palmful of berries. They need to find protein. Will he still think she's beautiful after he's seen her up to her elbows in squirrel guts? She snorts and throws a berry at his head after she scribbles on his sketch pad.

' _Nice try, but I'm not going to kiss you until we're done for the day.'_

Peeta dutifully roots through the grass to find the berry, but his eyes are sparkling as he says:

"But you  _will_  be kissing me, and that's what's important here."

That earns him another berry.

At night they camp on a bed of pine needles underneath one of the largest trees Katniss has ever seen. It's lucky they do because just as they drop their bags, the sky opens up and the rain falls fast and hard. She sets their pot out to collect rainwater while Peeta digs a hole into the ground and gathers more stones, setting up a fire much the same way he had the night before, but this time he adds treebark to stoke the fire higher and they use the top of the rock pile like a stove to cook their squirrels. As a result they're infused with a smoky, woody flavor that almost tastes like some kind of spice Peeta might have kept at the bakery.

She's trying hard not to think about Prim (because Peeta is right, she's safe with Rory) so she turns trying to guess 'which one this flavor is most like' into a game. Peeta's exhaustive knowledge of spices is amusing, especially because though he knows what they all taste like, he has no idea where they come from or what they look like before he receives them in glass jars. Rosemary, nutmeg and cinnamon are his favorites, but he doesn't know anything more about them than which to use for dessert recipes and which to use in bread. Others, like saffron and anise, he's read in recipes but knows nothing more about than their names. He pretends like he does though, making up increasingly ludicrous tales about plants that grow upside down or turn purple when they're ready to be picked.

The combination of warmth and food makes her eyes too burdensome to keep open, and she's very nearly asleep when she feels Peeta curl himself behind her and tuck an arm around her waist. The last thing she is aware of is the tip of his nose, cold against the hollow below her ear, and his lips, warm and pressed to the skin just below that.

She dreams of a warm kitchen and something else that has her heart fluttering against her ribs. By morning, she understands wanting something desperately and not even knowing what it is.

* * *

They set out even before the sun has fully risen. If they're ever going to catch up to Rory, Prim, Delly and Thistle, today is the day it will happen. She wakes sometime before dawn, her heart pattering against her ribs again. She jolts up and rubs her face and swollen eyes, attempting to clear the fog from her head.

"Everything ok?"

Peeta is fully awake. She wonders if he's even slept. With a slow nod she drops back to the ground, pushing her face into her palms and curling up. At first she wants to try to get back to sleep, but once the idea of using this extra time to catch up to Rory gets into her head, she's up and this time for good. The pot they left out in the rain the night before catches enough water to refill their canteen, and with the rest of her berries she makes a warm soup that is surprisingly good on such a damp morning. With no spoons to eat it with, it is a sticky, messy affair.

By the time the sun climbs over the ground and starts creeping in through the leaves they've already been on their way for a few hours. The trees are thinning out, and Katniss can feel underfoot the surface of the soil has a hardness that gives away bedrock underneath it. When the trees die out entirely and give way to tall grass, patches of rocky soil and grey-green moss, her suspicions are confirmed. On the one hand, there are far more predators to worry about in the forest than there are out in the open. On the other hand, they are exposed to what she's really worried about- the eyes of the Capitol.

They continue through the rocky grassland for a few miles before a wall of trees emerge over as they crest a hill. She pauses for a moment to survey the land around them- grey and still dark from the rain, but not nearly as dark as the soil in the forest. From her point of view, she can see the trees ahead stretch for miles, and beyond that, mountains rise tall and dark against the cloudy sky. She's looking up into that sky when she hears voices, and her heart leaps into her throat.

Her head whips around, searching frantically for the origin of the sound. It's coming from the treeline ahead of them and she breaks out into a run, Peeta following close behind.

It's Rory she sees first, and only because he moves out of the shadows the moment she and Peeta are over the hill and running toward him. He grins and waves with both arms, then bends down, hidden momentarily behind a wall of flourishing choke cherries. He's gone for a moment and then movement in the leaves and a shimmer of blonde reveals Prim's beaming, sweaty face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This chapter nearly killed me to get right. But here we are! Only a few left to go now...
> 
> Big big big thank you to my incredible beta Opaque, who did some really fantastic work on this chapter!


	21. Rock and Soil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We were so worried,” Prim says. “I thought maybe-”
> 
> “I’m never leaving you,” Katniss bites, more harshly than she means to. But she’s saying it for herself and Prim, so that they both understand that she means it. She’s learned her lesson. No more giving up. No more weakness. “Ok? Never.”
> 
> Prim’s eyes dart up to her face, earnest and wide.
> 
> “It’s ok, Katniss," Prim says, then softens her voice so it comes out as nearly a whisper. "I know you wouldn’t leave him either.”

During the dust-choked moments Katniss lay immobilized in front of the justice building, her mind had been so occupied with just surviving minute to minute that she hadn’t realized when she had given up on ever seeing Prim again. She was burning alive from the inside out, breath by breath, until the world contracted to just her agony and the halting flow of air in and out of her lungs. Finally all she became was a lump of flesh that hurt and tried to breathe. At some point during this, she resigned herself to failing to do the one thing Prim had ever asked of her-

To not leave her alone in the world.

Yes. Katniss had wanted to die. Even believed that she would. At some level, this made her guilty of betraying Prim. Of being weak and selfish enough to die so she wouldn’t have to endure another moment of the pain. Because though she had hurt Peeta to save him from her death, she couldn’t very well do the same to Prim.

Hurting Prim would just be hurting Prim.

So for all her desperation to find her sister again, she had never believed that she would, and she knows this because as Prim darts forward from the treeline, Katniss feels her throat become tight. But it’s not because she’s going to cry. It’s because she’s furious. Furious with herself for being a coward, and for being so weak that she had almost let herself fail Prim.

Prim. Prim. Who had no one left in the world but her.

But all of it- the guilt, the fear, the anger- disappears once she wraps her shaking arms around her sister. Prim is safe. This is real. They are here, together, and everything is ok. Prim is sweaty and solid in her arms, with dirt streaked on one of her cheeks and her hair a tangled, gold curtain, but she’s alive and whole. And that’s all that matters. The next time Katniss exhales, something hard and tight releases in her chest.

The future is still so uncertain. At any moment Peacekeepers could find them. They had those trucks, afterall. And hovercrafts too, all the more dangerous because they were completely silent and could spot them from miles up into the sky. For whatever reason their two groups have been undiscovered for four days- more than she ever could have imagined they'd get away with- but there’s no sense in assuming it would continue on this way. All it would take is them getting spotted out in the open and then it’d be over in moments with no chance of escape. But assuming they aren’t found, assuming they make it all the way to District Thirteen, who knew what was waiting for them there?

Nothing is left of their past but ruins. There's so much that they've lost. All of them, not just she and Prim. Homes. Friends. Family. In the course of a single day everything they’ve ever known has been burned to the ground. But she hasn’t lost Prim.

At the end of it all, Prim might be the only thing she has left in the world. As her sister pulls away and wipes her eyes, now bright and wet, she spies Peeta watching them with a broad grin. He ducks his head and asks Rory a question the moment he sees her looking, but the smile on his face doesn’t fade. Well, maybe Prim isn’t all she has.

Despite her guilt, her stomach flips. Does she dare think Peeta-

“We were so worried,” Prim says. “I thought maybe-”

“I’m never leaving you,” Katniss bites, more harshly than she means to. But she’s saying it for herself and Prim, so that they both understand that she means it. She’s learned her lesson. No more giving up. No more weakness. “Ok? Never.”

Prim’s eyes dart up to her face, earnest and wide.

“It’s ok, Katniss," Prim says, then softens her voice so it comes out as nearly a whisper. "I know you wouldn’t leave him either.”

Prim’s words shock her into silence. How could Prim possibly know that, if Katniss didn’t even know it herself? She hadn’t planned to run back for Peeta. It was almost as though she hadn’t thought at all. She had just done it. And even though of all the people in her life, Prim knew her best, she’s still startled that Prim had seen from the start something she never knew about herself. And with a sickening twist in her gut she realizes she has lied to Peeta yet again. Because when he asked her what she wanted from him, she had said “You- I only want you.”

And that wasn't the truth.

At least, it wasn’t entirely. Want isn’t what she meant to say. It wasn’t wrong, but it certainly wasn’t right, and she doesn’t know why, or even how to detangle the gnarl of thinking that led her to write it. She hadn’t thought about it. She just wrote it. But as much as she had meant those words, they weren’t at all how she actually felt.

Rory clears his throat.

“Glad you made it.”

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, and then pulls her into a quick hug he seems almost embarrassed about.

“Of course we did,” she says against his shoulder. “Can’t let you wander too far. Who’s going to gut your squirrels for you?”

Rory grins at her jab. He sucks at gutting his kills.

“We? So that’s why you went back.”

Katniss drops her eyes and pretends to adjust her bag.

“Well duh,” says a voice from behind them. Johanna Mason melts out of the trees, her shoulders slumped down and a bored half-sneer on her face.

Delly and Thistle emerge after her- at the same time, but not exactly together. Delly’s face is significantly more red than usual and she brushes past Thistle without looking back. For her part, Thistle seems unmoved by Delly’s coldness, but Katniss can see, and only for a split second, a look she’s seen on her own face more than a few times. She wrenches her eyes off the girl, feeling as if she’s intruded on something she shouldn’t have.

“Oh thank god!,” Delly says as she hurriedly hugs Peeta. “We were getting so worried- we were terrified something might have happened!”

Katniss decides now is a good time to be anywhere but here. When Delly finds out that Peeta’s hearing is gone she’s likely to mother-hen him to death, which will only make it more obvious that it’s Katniss’ fault he’s hurt to begin with, and how utterly lacking she is when it comes to stuff like comforting and healing. As she swallows the saliva in her mouth she can’t deny that the tightness of her throat may not only be because of the leftover bruising on her windpipe.

“And- oh- Katniss!,” Delly squeaks , wrapping her in a hug as well before Katniss can fully form a plan to sneak away. “I’m so glad you’re ok!”

Over Delly’s shoulder she eyes Thistle, who nods at her and manages an honest but pained smile that melts off her face before it even seems to fully take form.

“We should keep going,” she says as Delly pulls away. “We can’t afford to lose any time.”

“Finally someone agrees!” Johanna says in exasperation.

“Hang on,” says Delly with a sharp look at Johanna. “Katniss, you just got here, and we just woke up. The kids need breakfast before we do anything, and they’re not even awake yet.”

The kids. She must mean Rory’s siblings. And if they have made it, then Hazel must have too. Another knot releases in her chest. It’s beyond anything she could have ever hoped for.

“No, Katniss is right. I’ll go get’em ready,” says Rory.

Katniss goes too, and single handedly wrangles the notoriously picky Posy into eating little pieces of spicy onion and an apple as they begin their hike, mostly by letting Posy ride on her shoulders. She and Posy make a game of discreetly throwing the apple pips at the final member of their group, Finnick, who looks rugged and golden once again with his face clear of make-up and his hair shaved to the skin. She’s pretty sure he knows what’s going on because he mysteriously manages to dodge them every time, and once even sends a wink at Katniss after a particularly heroic dodge. The moment Vick catches on, he wants in too, but he just throws his pips at Johanna, who he’s angry at because she yelled at him for touching her ax.

And that ends the whole game, because Johanna’s patience with children is on par with her patience in general. That is to say, none whatsoever.

Katniss sneaks a look back and catches a glimpse of Peeta and Delly passing the tiny sketchbook back and forth. Delly touches his arm absently, her face open and caring. Something about that action twists like a hot knife in her chest. She’s felt like this only once before, when she had been teased at school for her patched dressed and skinny arms. Katniss turns quickly around and ignores the weird way her stomach clenches, tight and sad. ‘Well they are friends,’ she tells herself harshly. It isn’t like she doesn’t want him to have friends. Thistle had said there was only one girl Peeta had ever wanted, and it was her (she also ignores the warm quiver that thought sparks low in her belly). Peeta didn’t like Delly that way, and Delly didn’t even like boys period, so what did it matter?

Luckily, Rory is there to put an end to these thoughts.

“Soil’s wet,” he says casually, knocking the toe of his boot into the rotting foliage underfoot. The leaves give way to reveal rusty brown soil, clumped loosely and full of small gray pebbles. He looks into the trees, his dark eyes quick and alert as he considers the landscape around them. This forest is different than the one across the plain. It’s rockier, the trees taller and less dense. It’s darker too, and they seemed to gradually be descending, though it’s hard to tell.

“You think there’s a river nearby?”

Rory squats and picks up a clump of dirt, massaging it with one hand and watching as it crumbles back to the ground.

“Not a river exactly ...”

Rory outlines a theory he has about a series of caves that his father had once told Gale dotted these mountains, and Katniss readily agrees to join him in scouting ahead of the group to see if they can find anything. She doesn’t ask how his father could have possibly known about the caves. There were some things you just got into the habit of doing in the Seam, like not asking too many questions. She leaves Posy with Prim, draws her bow, and she and Rory slip off into the trees ahead. When she turns around to wave at Posy one last time, Peeta is staring at her. Her lips twitch and she hurries after Rory.

It feels better like this- away from Peeta. Doing, instead of thinking herself in circles. Getting to watch Rory at work is fascinating. He’s not the world’s greatest hunter. He lacks Gale’s patience, and he’s not great at holding still for long enough to get a good shot with his bow, but he’s a veritable library of little facts about animals and, to a lesser degree, edible plants.

“That’s Prim’s doing, you know,” he says with a dopey smile. “Everything I know about plants is from her.”

She and Rory periodically check the dirt for moisture, and the auburn soil just gets darker and denser the further they head on. They’re heading toward water of some kind for sure.

According to Rory, this is what they should be looking for. He figures there’s some kind of connection between caves and water, and Katniss holds herself back from bringing up the fact that Rory’s never seen a cave in real life. There was only one she’d ever seen herself, and it was a tiny one she stumbled on by accident, mistakenly believing it to be an animal den.

While they scout, they keep a look out for food. She nabs a few squirrels and forages for mustard, poke and quickweed. She digs up a couple of onions and picks a pouch of sour blackberries from a thicket taller than she is with thorns as big as her fingers.

She’s so absorbed in their hunt that she doesn’t even notice when the pain in her head starts, just that the pressure and heat become suddenly distracting as she’s eyeing another squirrel over the end of her arrow. The temperature has shifted again from chilly this morning, to warm and muggy later on, and now the air is light and crisp. She can feel the moisture in it too, heavy and making her clothes cling to her skin as if she were sweating.

Shit.

There’s only one thing this could mean. A storm is barreling towards them, and it’s bringing with it one of those headaches that left her in too much pain to move.

As the darkness from the gathering clouds overhead creeps through the forest, she doubles her efforts, racking up eight plump squirrels, a new personal record. Rory grins broadly at the sight of their tails in her fist and she quirks an eyebrow at him and smirks. They continue their search, with Rory growing increasingly sure that they are close to finding something, and Katniss’ head becoming steadily more painful.

It’s only when she nearly trips over a root that she admits that the headache is moving faster than she expected. It’s been less than an hour since she’s felt it and already there are flashes at the corners of her eyes and focusing on any one thing has become nearly impossible. Still, she can’t bring herself to say anything to Rory.

He keeps insisting that they’re nearly there, that he knows it’s here somewhere.

After an hour of rooting around in the brush and rocks, they head back to find the group. They haven’t scouted too far ahead, but by the time they reach everyone they’ve already set up for lunch, and Katniss joins Prim to share a few berries and what’s left of a squirrel. Mostly, she just picks at the food. She should eat, she knows she should, but it seems kind of useless if there’s a chance she could throw it up anyway.

There’s a good chance that she will. Her head doesn’t feel any better for the few bites of food she has managed to swallow. If anything, she feels worse, and besides from an strange craving for hickory,  there’s nothing she wants more than to lie down for a nap like Posy and Vick.

So that’s what she does.

As Katniss puts her head down, it spins angrily, the ground beneath her tipping and rising as if she were riding on waves of water. She squeezes her eyes tight, only meaning to shut them for a minute.

Of course, that’s never how that works.

-

Voices.

“-what do we do?”

“Don’t wake her up, it’s fine.”

“Those clouds are comin’ on quick, Rory says it’s not far but do you think that Peeta-”

“He said he’d carry her. Let her sleep.”

-

She doesn’t wake up so much as she becomes gradually aware. The bite of heat in the air that had been present earlier in the day has faded, only to be replaced by a definite chill that creeps through the worn cotton of her dress. Dark clouds have finally filled the sky and they’re making good on their threat to rain fast and hard. Thunder rumbles somewhere far away, but it’s nearly drowned out by the rain.

Someone is running their fingers through her hair.

It feels so deliciously good that goosebumps race over the skin of her arms and she shifts sleepily, stretching her legs and then curling them back up. As she does, a soft sound somewhere between a whimper and sigh escapes her.The hand in her hair pauses. No, she thinks. Don’t stop. As if reading her thoughts, the hand resumes its journey from the front of her head to the back, drawing its nails lightly against her scalp. The pounding in her brain has only gotten worse, and the two sensations duel for her attention.

Her eyes flutter and she drifts off again, but this time she dips in and out of awareness enough to hear, but not understand voices and the crackling of a fire echoing around her. At some point someone drapes a blanket over her and the words- “Thanks, she was shivering” fall across her cheek.

The added weight and warmth of the blanket sends her over the edge back into a dreamless sleep.

Sometime later, her eyes drift open and she yawns deeply.

"Welcome back," says a low, familiar voice behind her.

She turns her head and looks up into Peeta's face. He’s sitting on the ground next to her with her head on his lap.

"How do you feel?"

She pushes some of her loose hair out of her face and smiles weakly at him. The real answer is she’s so exhausted she could easily go back to sleep. That is, if she wasn't so hungry. She sits up and feels her head spin, but the pain has dulled to a soft pounding.

And then she realizes they are not, in fact, out in the open forest. Rocky walls arch overhead, glittering with moisture and dotted by plump tufts of dark moss, and all lit by the flickering glow of a low fire, around which everyone but she and Peeta are gathered. To her right, the space extended back almost without end. This tunnel could lead deep, deep under the mountain. Maybe all the way to the other side. To her left was Peeta, and beyond him, the forest, where rain still fell in gusts of mist and water droplets.

It’s a cave.

Peeta grins at the look on her face as she takes in their surroundings.

“It’s cool, right? Rory found it. I never even knew something like this existed,” he says, a little bit of wonder evident in his voice. His hands fly to his pockets and he pulls out his little sketchbook, flipping through for an empty page. Katniss can see blocks of neat, girlish script, so unlike her own cramped, all-caps handwriting. It must be Delly’s. Peeta’s flipping reveals that not a single blank page is left, and he colors a little.

“Shit,” he mutters, then sighs heavily.

Katniss looks around for her pack and finds it a few feet away from her leaning against the wall. She scrambles for it, digging through the contents until she finds what she’s looking for.

“Here,” she mutters, then winces. Peeta still can’t hear her, yet she can’t seem to stop babbling around him.

He looks down at the book she shoved at him with shock.

“My old sketchbook… I thought the fire-”

He abandons words and kisses her quickly, which she supposes is alright because no one is paying attention to them anyway. It’s so fast that even if someone had chanced to turn their way, they probably wouldn’t catch it. And really, she didn’t mind if he wanted to kiss her like that. Not at all.

But the real kisses would have to wait.

Heat rises in her cheeks and she pushes her hair out of her face.

‘Wanna sit by the fire?,’ she scribbles out on one of the last pages of the book, small so they’d have plenty of space for later.

Peeta shakes his head, his eyes flickering around the circle of people gathered there.

“No, I- um. It’s exhausting, you know? Frustrating. To see what’s happening, but have to wait to know what’s going on… You go. You haven’t eaten yet. Please eat.”

She hadn’t considered that. Hadn’t thought of what it would be like for Peeta, who so loved people, to suddenly be so disconnected from them. To have to depend on someone else to give an account of what was happening. So much of what happened could be lost in those in between moments. And then all the guilt is back, because it truly is her fault that Peeta can’t do what comes most naturally to him. Listen.

She grabs the pencil and holds it above the paper, suddenly desperate to write him something meaningful. Something that would make it better. But she had no idea what that could be. Don’t worry, you’ll be right as rain and hear again real soon! She doesn’t know much about ear injuries, but in Twelve if you went deaf you tended to stay that way.

Would this be Peeta’s whole life?

It’s been days and his hearing still wasn’t back to normal. Long ago, her mother had said something about ear injuries, but she couldn’t remember what that was. Her mother didn’t see very many patients who came to her about lost hearing. With all the machinery used in the mines, it wasn’t uncommon for someone to lose their hearing by their mid-forties, depending on what position they worked. Any machine operator was guaranteed to lose it, but when they did they never sought out treatment for it. It was just another fact of working the mines, as natural there as black lung.

“You really are, you know,” Peeta blurts out suddenly. She looks up from where her pencil is poised above the paper. “Beautiful, I mean.”

She stares at him.

“I’m sorry. If you don’t want me to say that I-”

Maybe it’s better that she just replace all the things she doesn’t know how to say with quick kisses. The way Peeta reacts to them certainly suggests she’s better at kissing than she is at talking anyway. Her lips land on his cheek and he quiets.

‘You are too,’ she writes, before she can think about how stupid she sounds repeating his words back to him. She stands up quickly and walks toward the fire, refusing to look back. If she were a better person, she wouldn’t have left.

Her head starts to clear once she’s had some food and water. Prim makes sure she gets plenty of both, and some willow bark tea that Katniss had really been hoping she’d seen the last of. Unfortunately, Prim watched her like a hawk until she had drunk all of it.

As soon as she’s done, she slinks back to Peeta. She curls up next to him as he sketches the cave on one of the pages that’s only been half used. This sketchbook is much bigger than his other one, with plenty more room to double up drawings or write around the ones that already exist, and watching the tension leave him as he immersed himself in that other world of his is like watching a flower open up at dawn.

She likes this. Sitting quietly with him. He’s outlined her words- You are too- in a box made to look like a plaque, complete with little screws and a symmetrical floral design arching outward that somehow seemed both natural and metallic all at once. The plaque becomes screwed onto the trunk of a tree whose roots tangles into a halo of long, riotous curls she recognizes as her own hair when it’s not braided tightly back.

She’s so absorbed in watching him that she jumps when someone calls her name. It’s Finnick and she glares at him, but he pays no mind. He motions her over to the fire, and reluctantly she stands and makes her way there stiffly. But only because Rory is looking at her curiously too. They want to know what happened after she went back for Peeta. Everyone gathered there does, including Prim. As much as she’s sure at least Finnick and Johanna will know she’s lying, she tells them a very abridged version that leaves out nearly all violence, and she hopes Peeta had told something similar to Delly. As she speaks there are some places where Delly frowns, but all in all it must go well because Delly never questions her.

She stops her story when she and Peeta reach the fence and comes to the realization that Rory must have decided not to wait because of the violence that was happening.

“Actually,” Rory says, “The fence was like that when we got there. Must have been there for a while. But you’re right, I didn’t want to stick around. I think that that means-”

“There’s more survivors,” Katniss interrupts. “Somewhere out here. They got to the fence before you did, because you ran back to get your Mom and Vick and Posy.”

Rory nods.

“Right. And I think there was a lot of them too.”

There’s a moment of heavy silence between the people gathered around the fire.

“What will happen to them?” asks Prim. “They don’t have anyone like Rory or Katniss. They don’t know where they’re going.”

“I’d imagine they’re headed to another District,” says Finnick carefully, but Katniss can’t tell if he’s lying or telling the truth. His face is a mask.

Johanna drums her fingers on her knee and rolls her eyes skyward.

“It’s Haymitch,” she says. “That walking bag of booze and bones isn’t dead, I’ll tell you that right now. Don’t worry about those survivors. They’re fine. We’re the ones who still have a whole fucking journey ahead of us.”

She stands abruptly and heads away from the fire, plopping down with her back to the group and curling on her side.

“I’m going to sleep,” she grunts. “You should too. I’m not waiting for any of you if you stay up all night playing amateur detective.”

Gradually, they do. All except for Thistle, who gets up and sits down next to Katniss the minute Delly leaves.

“There’s something you need to know.”

Thistle wrings her hands and a few of her knuckles pop.

“It’s about the explosions. When Rory went back to get his family, I ran to get my dad but-”

She breaks off, clenches her jaw so tight Katniss can hear her teeth grinding.

“-but he-”

Thistle’s face twists horribly, and Katniss looks away to the fire. When her eyes dart back, it’s as if nothing has happened. Thistle’s face is as smooth and expressionless as ever, her dark eyes calm and glinting, as if daring her to ever mention what she had seen to anyone. They’ll never believe you, they imply.

Thistle sniffs lightly.

“There was bomb. That’s all you need to know.”

“What do you mean, a bomb? What did it look like?”

Thistle glares at her acidly.

“They were bombs. I know what bombs look like.”

“Yeah, but how-”

“They were bombs, alright?! Fuck, will you just listen! They were made with white liquor. Tons of it. I mean, they were huge. And I bet you anything it wasn’t just my house. I bet you they planted bombs all across the District, and I bet you it happened while we were all distracted at the Reaping.”

Katniss feels her stomach clench and tie itself into a knot. If what Thistle is saying is true, then there was only one place all of that liquor could have come from.

“You get it. You get what I’m saying, right? Neither of us are idiots. They knew about the bombs. Finnick and Johanna, I mean. They had to. This thing with District Thirteen and your ex-boyfriend-”

“He’s not-”

“Ugh, I so don’t give a fuck! Listen to me, Everdeen, because I’m only going to say this once. We’re walking into a trap, and if we all die, it’s on you.”

 

**  
** ****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi All, Opaque posting for GreenWool this time, so any formatting issues are mine. Don't judge her for them :)


	22. Inadequate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, something solid she could know about District Thirteen. She had a name- President Coin- and she knew something about her- she worked with Gale personally. Something tells Katniss it’s no coincidence Gale got to speak with President Coin. There was a reason Coin wanted to know how best to burn the District to the ground, she was sure of it. The same nagging voice from before pleads with her to remember… something.

Waking up miserable is nothing new for Katniss Everdeen. Winter mornings; when they were so poor they couldn’t even afford coal to cook with, let alone heat the house, stand out as the bleakest of her life. Nothing could ever be as miserable as waking up cold and hungry, and knowing that’s how you’d stay. But even she would admit that waking up to the business end of an arrow would be a far worse than toes that were flirting with frostbite.

Of course, that doesn’t stop her from pressing her boot onto Finnick Odair’s chest as well.

Just in case her message isn’t clear enough.

Katniss’ incredibly shallow well of patience has already been wasted waiting on every member of their party to fall asleep, and goddammit, Peeta didn’t stop tossing until well into the night. By the time his breathing grew shallow, the fire was burning low in the embers, casting dark shadows , flickering over the still forms in the cave- Posy curled up in Hazel’s arms, Vick, all arms and legs, his stomach bare to the night with his hand resting just under his shirt. Rory sat with his back propped against the cave wall, Thistle next to him snoring softly, and Delly by herself closest to the fire. Katniss took the first watch but curled up with Prim under their quilt. Prim had been out right away, but Katniss had to be extra careful that she was deep enough asleep that she wouldn’t miss her sister’s warmth next to her and wake up.

If there is an ounce of truth to Thistle’s suspicions, she intends to learn it tonight. The bombs planted across Twelve had leveled the district, and if they had been made with the alcohol Katniss herself had produced with her tiny backyard still, she wanted to know. She had to know. Because that would mean she was responsible for countless deaths, and if she stops being angry, even for a moment, she might lose her resolve to find out just how much blood is on her hands. And that, she fears more than death itself, because then how could she possibly live the rest of her life without going completely insane?

The hours between when she spoke to Thistle and now were an excruciating infinity she can’t bear to think will be the rest of her life. But what would it do to her, to know that she had killed? It was as unimaginable as death itself. Peeta had protected her from this. If it turned out to be true, could she protect him from the same knowledge? Or would she selfishly drag him down with her?

Finnick’s eyes pop open as something hot and chaotic bubbles over in her chest, flooding her veins and burning its way through her mind. His eyes flicker from Katniss to her boot, ignoring completely the cold steel tip of an arrow poised mere inches from his throat.

“S‘not a very nice way to wake a man up, love.”

“I’m not nice.”

“Yes, you’ve made that point,” he says lightly.

She digs the heel of her boot into his chest and leans down low so the tip of the arrow whisper-kisses his adam’s apple.

“The bombs in District Twelve. Who put them there?”

“I have the distinct feeling you might already know-,” he coughs.

Katniss inches her arm back, drawing the arrow with it.

"-and if that’s the case, you’d be better off asking me about the deal your friend made with District Thirteen instead."

Katniss narrows her eyes.

 

"I'm listening."

 

"Wonderful,” he says, his eyes trained on the tip of her arrow. “But love, this position makes talking a bit… difficult."

 

Behind them the embers of the fire crackle weakly as they burn lower and lower, and the rest of their ragged little group snores lightly. If Finnick is up, he could alert Johanna and they could both get away without giving her any of the answers she needed. As proficient as she is with a bow and arrow, facing down two of the fiercest Victors Panem has known is not something she is sure she could survive.

 

And survival, above all, is why she has Finnick pinned in the first place.

 

Still, a tiny voice nags her about his timely gift of a lemon in the middle of winter. The lemon that had lasted three whole months between two families. Peeta had said that Finnick had been trying to earn her trust. Unfortunately for him, trust is something she’s in short supply of.

 

"You're fine right where you are," she grunts, but lessens the pressure on his chest as a show of good will. An easy grin twists across Finnick’s face as his eyes glint through the darkness.

 

“Can’t say I mind the view,” he says, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. She has no idea what he means by that and doesn’t want to. As she stares at him stonily, his grin only grows. He’s toying with her, she realizes furiously. Mocking her.

 

“Start talking,” she snaps.

 

“Bad move, brainless.”

 

Something sharp and cold presses against the side of her throat. Katniss curses to herself as she realizes that while she had kept an eye on most of the people in their party, she had made the fatal mistake of forgetting to account for Johanna Mason. If there’s anything the games have taught her, it’s the danger in underestimating the deceptively small girl from District Seven.

 

“What the hell is going on?” Johanna asks, her boot creeping into view next to Katniss’. The gravel beneath her feet crunches as she steadies her stance.

 

“Little bit of a misunderstanding,” Finnick says. “That’s all. Katniss here seems to think we know something she doesn’t about our dear adoptive District.”

 

Johanna snorts.

 

“I’ll bet she does.”

 

They were both making fun of her. Katniss sets her jaw. She may have underestimated Johanna, but Johanna has also underestimated her, and Katniss resolves to make that just as much of a mistake. Answers are all she cares about. If District Thirteen is hiding something, and she leads Prim and Peeta right into it -

 

She drops her bow and whirls into Johanna, pushing away her weapon and arm with one hand, and clipping Johanna’s midsection with her other fist.

 

But Johanna is fast. Much faster than Katniss anticipates. She pivots on her heel, swinging back around and using her momentum to propel the blunt handle of her knife against Katniss’ back, just below her ribs. All the air is knocked out of her lungs as she flies forward, but she never hits the ground. A strong arm catches her around her middle, but she can’t do anything more than hang over it, as dark spots bloom in her eyes and blood roars in her eyes.

 

She can’t tell if the fiercely whispered argument between Johanna and Finnick that follows is actually taking place, but she thinks she hears Finnick say “We need her or the deal’s off, you heard what Coin said-” Katniss digs her fingers into Finnick’s arm, gasping shallowly as more pain erupts in her lower back. All she can do is hang there uselessly as her vision returns to normal.

 

“Her kidneys, Johanna?!”

  
“Hey. Can’t hit the head, right? Had to get her somewhere.”

 

An uncomfortable silence reigns for a long time as the world around her starts to right itself, and she hears Johanna’s boots shifting in the rocky soil once again.

 

“Are you ok?” Finnick whispers finally. His words are fuzzy, like her ears have been stuffed with cotton.

 

“She’s fine,” Johanna grunts dismissively.

 

“Help me get her outside. We can talk there.”

 

“No! No- I don’t need-”

 

She shoves Finnick’s arm away, but he insists on coaching her outside anyway. She catches a glimpse of Johanna’s face- her eyes mid-roll and the corners of her lips tucked into a frown. Her gaze flits back toward the trees as she exits the cave into the moisture that still clings to the air outside. The rain has slowed to drifts of mist and errant droplets, but the chatter of water dripping from leaves to the earth and the low rumble of thunder in the distance promises that this reprieve is just the eye of the storm.

 

“Lets start with the rebellion,” Finnick says once they’re far enough away from the cave. “What do you know about it?”

 

“Enough,” she says evasively, but Finnick’s already figured out that she’s full of it.

 

"Alright. From the beginning then. A year ago, there was a drought in-"

 

"District Twelve. I lived there, you know," she says impatiently.

 

"No, sweetie. It was all across Panem. Crops failed in Eleven. Cattle died in Ten. The harvest failed in Nine. Fisheries in Four went bone dry. Of course, the Capitol didn't care. They still demanded the same output from all the Districts, and punished whoever couldn’t meet the quotas.”

 

While the drought had been terrible in Twelve, one of the worst things she had had to survive, it hadn’t affected coal output. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it would’ve been to have had the Capitol breathing down their necks in the midst of a District wide water and food shortage. If she hadn’t been able to get to the lake and collect water, she and Prim would have died. There was no question.  
  
“That’s when the problems started. Food rations were cut, particularly in Four, Nine and Eleven, the places that were hardest hit by the drought.”

 

Katniss swallows.

 

“People died. A lot of people. There was nothing for it but to fight back. It was disorganized, but there were some Districts who managed to put a resistance together. Like Four and Eleven.”

 

According to Finnick, the rebellion is nearly a year old already, and District Twelve isn’t the first to fight back. If what he’s saying is true, District Twelve may even be one of the luckier ones.

 

“Four went dark a few months ago. No communication in or out with the Capitol. They’re holding on with support from District Thirteen, but just barely. Districts Eleven and Twelve went with the Reaping this year, and District Three has been on the brink for a few months. They’re next.”

 

“Why now? This isn’t the first time there’s been a drought.”

 

“No. It’s not. But it’s the first time the Capitol came down this hard. It was either fight back, or watch everyone you love slowly die.”

 

Finnick talks as though he understands this trap himself- only, how could he? He was a Victor, and one of the most beloved in the country at that. Surely with all his money, with all his fame, he could prevent that kind of suffering in his own District. With a start she realizes that Haymitch could have too if he was really so interested in saving lives. Katniss feels a weird coldness in her hands and the sudden urge to flex her fingers.

 

Johanna and Finnick exchange a look.

 

“And we had something else too,” Johanna says. "An ally."

 

"Or, that's what we thought," says Finnick.

 

"District Thirteen," Katniss breathes. That's how the rebellion was being sustained. The districts were poor. None of them had weapons like the Capitol had, or so she had to guess. Once a District started their own rebellion, District Thirteen swooped in- but the fire had to already be burning.

 

“And all of this you could have already known long before. I leaked information to you every chance I got, but you go after Finnick the minute my back is turned. Not really that bright one, are you?”

 

Katniss glowers at the other girl, but Johanna’s face- serious, grim- doesn’t match the teasing tone of her voice. With a jolt, Katniss remembers Johanna blurting out the rebel’s plans during the meeting in the Evens. She hadn’t thought about why she had done that. Hadn’t thought that Johanna was trying to give her information, just thought she was trying to get the meeting to end as soon as possible.

 

“That paper in the register,” she says. “That was you. We were only supposed to get a note, but you put it on the recipe for my medication.”

 

Johanna throws her hands in the air.

 

“Now she gets it.”

 

“Peeta said the handwriting was a man’s.”

 

It sounds defensive, even to her.

 

“Or someone who spends more time with an ax in her hand than a pencil,” Johanna says with a frown.

 

“But you mentioned a lemon!”

 

“So you do remember,” Finnick blurts.

 

“Of course I do,” Katniss says with a sniff of indignance.

 

“Fine. Loverboy was right. This one wrote it,” says Johanna as she jerks her thumb at Finnick. “But I’m the one that stole the plans. I’m the one who snuck it back through these godforsaken woods, and I’m the one who had Finnick slip it in that register.”

 

“But why?”

 

Johanna’s jaw clenches.

 

“Because we made deals with District Thirteen too, and it was our job to get the rebels in District Twelve to organize, and we needed you. Without you, we lost Hawthorne, and without Hawthorne, we had nothing."

 

“What do you mean, you needed me?”

 

“It means District Thirteen let Hawthorne name his price, dummy. Took me and Finnick weeks to organize a safe spot for our families, and Hawthorne waltzes in and gets to talk to President Coin herself."

 

Finally, something solid she can says she knows about District Thirteen. She has a name- President Coin- and she knows something about her- she worked with Gale personally. It’s no coincidence Gale got to speak with the President of District Thirteen right off the bat. There was a reason Coin wanted to know how best to burn the District to the ground and that same nagging voice from before pleads with her to remember… something. It’s important, she's sure of it, but she can't quite remember what it is...

"He sold out your entire District," Johanna continues. "He thought he’d be there to lead them away when the bombs started going off. He told Coin where to bomb and when. Told her how the reaping organizes everyone in the square, how there had been riots, how anything was likely to set another one off. Any guess what she did with that information?”

 

Johanna points up.

 

“Lights. Camera. Action. She used the footage for propos. And wouldn’t you know it, you gave the performance of the century.”

 

Something hot and sick twists around and around in her stomach and the skin on the back of her neck prickles. As she rubs her sweaty palms on her pants she thinks of the cameras that had been flying overhead as District Twelve burned to the ground. Those cameras flying overhead as District Twelve burned to the ground- that's what she had been trying to remember. At the time she had thought those cameras were reporting the riots to the Capitol, but the reality was something much, much worse.

 

“Performance?”

 

Johanna rolls her eyes.

 

“The gun? That peacekeeper? They’ve been playing that clip of you for weeks. You and breadboy are famous. The symbols of the fucking rebellion.”

 

She sniffs and wipes her nose before looking into the forest and tapping her ax against the insole of her boot. Her eyes cut back to Katniss, narrowed and sharp.

 

“They’re even sending a hovercraft to come get you the minute we get around this mountain. The rest of us are marching right back out here, but Coin wants you and Peeta front and center for your ‘close ups’.”

 

“I didn’t ask for this,” Katniss says. “I just wanted to keep him alive.”

 

Finnick clears his throat.

 

“Do you know what District Thirteen will do if they think they might lose this war?”

 

Finnick’s wording itches like a scab. Beetee had said something similar to this.

 

Katniss stares.

 

“Do you know what their specialty was?”

 

“Nuclear power and weapons,” she says automatically. What that means she isn't sure. All she knows of District Thirteen is what she learned in school, and there was no guarantee it was actually true. According to her textbooks, District Thirteen was destroyed years ago, and there was no one that survived.

 

“Do you know what the weapons they have can do? A flash of light, a cloud of smoke, and everything is ash. We know the Capitol has a few of them, but District Thirteen has hundreds. Enough to-”

 

“-to wipe the map clean,” Johanna says, and Katniss thinks immediately of the earth of District Twelve, scorched to white ash and rising dreamily into the air.

 

“What about the bombs in District Twelve?”

 

Finnick looks at her sharply.

 

“Who set them?”

 

“Not everyone in a white uniform was a peacekeeper,” he says.

 

“And the-,” her throat dries out completely. She thinks of Peeta and talks anyway. “The fuel. For the bombs. It was alcohol.”

 

“Yes. And butane.”

 

“From the bakery ovens. And the alcohol?”

 

“Yours.”

 

And there it is.

 

The pit of her stomach bottoms out.

 

All those people. How many lives had been swallowed whole in the space of a few short hours? Their blood is on her hands, more permanent than any tattoo.

 

She stumbles away from Finnick and Johanna, landing on her knees in time to spill out a meager mouthful of vomit. Shudders rattle through her as she presses the heels of her palms onto her eyes, breathing hard between clenched teeth.

 

There’s the gentle brush of fingertips between her shoulder blades, and she lashes her arm back. But Finnick catches it, encircling her forearm completely with his hand. She tries to yank it away from him, but he holds it fast and in the ensuing struggle she feels something pop in her shoulder. As a hot pain races down her arm and jerks her back from a precipice she hadn’t even known she was on, she realizes Finnick has been talking to her.

 

“-I’m not saying what he did was right, but it worked. Haymitch knew what he was doing when he-”

 

Haymitch. Of course it was him. She should have known better than to trust him. He manipulated her, and Peeta too. Twisted them into doing something they never would have on their own. She can almost hear Haymitch weeze- “Easy as pie”. And it would have been, from the start, easy to trick the clueless Seam girl and the desperate boy from the bakery. They had probably even delivered the alcohol to the very houses that had been bombed, and Haymitch had funded it all. He had probably even lied about the money from the very beginning. He needed two fuel sources, a delivery system and a cover, and she and Peeta had provided it all in one fell swoop.

 

And Gale. He had been in on it too. Gambled with hundreds of lives. He thought he could save the District. Instead he nearly killed them all.

 

“He used me,” she croaks, and she's not truly sure whether she means Haymitch or Gale.

 

Gale never told her what he was doing. Instead he manipulated her. Lied to her. Traded her life for hundreds of others. She never asked for this- never would have wanted to live if other people had to die. And Haymitch made Peeta’s goodness a prop. Treated him like a pawn. And while Peeta was on his knees waiting to die, Haymitch was already escaping into the woods.

 

Her stomach tightens and bile sears up her throat.

 

Oh no. Peeta.

 

What will this do to him? His hands are so excruciatingly gentle. They were only made to hold and create beautiful things- not kill. She realizes with a vicious squeeze in her chest that she will have to be the one to tell him. Keeping this from him would be more than a secret. It would be an outright lie, and she’s through with lying to Peeta. But how could she bare to deliver this to him? What would she say? What could she say? She tries to imagine explaining it but all she comes up with is feeling her voice die in her throat.

 

"Gale and Haymitch saved lives. Hundreds of them. No one was in those houses. Everyone was in the square. Some people died, yes. But many, many others made it to the gate, and the Capitol is hardly the wiser that they survi-”

 

“What the hell is going on?”

 

It’s Peeta. His hands are on her, trying to help her to stand, but her knees aren’t working. Peeta scoops her up with an ease that embarrasses her.

 

“Next time this happens, come get me,” he snaps at Finnick. She is frozen in horror in his arms, hardly daring to breathe as he walks back to the cave. The misting rain has already soaked his hair to his head, plastering his darkened curls against his neck. This reminds her that she too is wet. And cold. She shivers. Peeta stops abruptly and turns around, striding back to where Finnick is.

 

“So help me god, if she gets sick-”

 

And it’s all so absurd, that anyone should care about someone with so much blood on their hands, when her head is just a little broken, not completely caved in and lying in the mud. She wishes there was a point in crying. There isn’t, but it would be nice if it did anything at all to stop her from feeling like she was being swallowed.

 

She curls her fingers into the shoulders of his shirt and digs her forehead into the crook of his neck. If only she was strong enough to tear herself from his arms and the comfort they brought. They only reminded her how alive she was when so many others weren’t. Only reminded her that she isn’t capable of returning the favor should he need it, that he would be much better off turning to someone like Delly for that. He’d be better off if he did love someone like Delly.

 

If anyone ever cared about her, it was Peeta, and all he ever wanted was the same from her, but somewhere along the way it had all gone so horribly wrong.

 

“Come on,” he says, “Prim will have something for you. She has to.”

 

His hand rests on the back of her head as he hurries back into the cave and settles her by the fire. It does nothing to alleviate the cold. Her dress is soaked to her skin and so are her pants. They cling to her in frigid drapes and the chill sinks all the way into her bones. Peeta goes to turn away, his sight already set on Prim’s bag, but she grabs his sleeve and pulls him back. His eyes flit to her fingers as they twist his sleeve and he gives her a look she cannot place and doesn’t try to. It’s too tender, and there’s nothing she deserves less than that.

 

Of course Peeta would never mean for that kind of thing to be painful, but that’s exactly what it feels like. It’s that look that finally breaks her and she snatches Peeta’s sketchbook from next to his quilt, writing the words she’s glad she doesn’t have to actually say out loud.

 

‘The bombs that blew up District was made with alcohol. It was ours. Haymitch used us.’

 

She shoves the book at him.

 

His eyes shoot up to hers in dismay, wide and confused.

 

“Are you sure?” he whispers.

 

Thistle had no reason to lie. Finnick wouldn’t. Johanna wanted her to know.

 

All she can give him in answer is a swift nod of her head as her eyes well up and her chin quivers. She can hardly believe it’s real either. From the start Haymitch had manipulated them to his own ends, tricked them into fueling a rebellion that had resulted in more deaths than she can properly understand, even though she had been there for it.

 

There had been clues, now that she thinks about it. The riot in the Evens should have tipped her off. The man who had thrown that flaming bottle- she had recognized the label as coming from the Capitol, so she hadn’t questioned where he had gotten it. But she should have. Why would someone waste something as expensive as Capitol grade liquor on a bomb? It had been Haymitch who had saved all those bottles. Told the rebels to put the liquor in them to disguise the source.

 

Stupid. So stupid.

 

“We killed them,” she moans. To her own ears she sounds like a wounded animal. A part of her is glad Peeta isn't able to hear her voice, but a larger part of her still wishes that he could, so she didn't feel so limited by words, which she’s so inept at using. Now, when she needs them most, they have failed her again. That she can't fully communicate her horror makes her feel as if Peeta isn't next to her at all, and she suddenly understands what it must be like to be him, alone in a quiet world where no one can reach you.

 

She has never felt further from him.

 

Never needed him more.

 

She buries her face in her hands and lets her shoulders shake the way she has been trying to prevent Peeta from seeing. He draws her against his chest and she latches onto to him as if he were the last person in the world. His arms tighten around her and his warmth shocks her chilled, pebbling skin. His hands on her back feel like infernos, blazing through the thin, wet cotton of her dress, straight through her skin to her very bones.

 

"Katniss," he says softly. "We didn’t do this.”

 

And oh- she wants it to be true. Almost as if he can sense the words rising to the surface of her mind, he shakes his head.

 

“We would never have done this. Neither of us. I lied to protect you, and we both trusted Haymitch because we had no other choice. How could we have known what he’d do with the alcohol? And Ripper gave us the instructions to build the still. Is she a murderer too? What about the farmers from Nine that grew the grain? If it starts with us Katniss, where does it end? And what other choice did we have?”

 

No choice, really. But people were dead, and you can't argue with a dead body. Haymitch may have saved some, but there were deaths to account for. Children without fathers. Mothers without children. Who was responsible for that?

 

“What were we supposed to do? Let all the Seam kids starve? Should I have let you starve? What about Prim?”

 

Her breathing stills.

 

No. He couldn’t have done that. He never could have done that. And she never could have either. They were caught in the same trap- no matter what they did, the noose around Twelve had been tightening steadily, and nothing they could have done would have stopped it.

 

* * *

 

The next morning she’s awake before she’s even sure she was sleeping. Her head pounds and her eyes feel puffy and dry as she sits up, and she finds Peeta already kneeling on one knee in front of the fire, stoking it with debris from the cave floor. Outside, the wind and rain lash the trees and send whorls of leaves and sticks tumbling by. It’s a full on storm.

 

They aren’t going anywhere today.

 

Hazel looks at her with an expression that stings her somewhere deep. Concern. Her own mother hadn’t looked at her like that in so long. She doesn’t even remember when that would had been. She can hardly remember her mother’s face at all. The shape of her eyes is comes easily to mind, but not their exact color. The light wrinkles at the corners of her mouth are also easy to recall, but what her smile looked like is gone. And though she knows her mother’s hair had been blonde with greying streaks, she only remembers the limp, thin braid that hung down her back, and not how it looked loose.

 

“Hungry, Katniss?,” Prim chirps. Rory sits next to her grinning outrageously at the cave floor, and Prim gestures at the rabbits hanging over the fire. Rory shakes his head, spraying all of them with the water dripping from his hair. Hazel frowns, but Vick is delighted and scrambles to the mouth of the cave to load his own hair up with water.

 

Before he makes it Thistle grabs him by the neck of his shirt, hoists him in the air, and flips him over so she’s holding his ankles with the very tips of his hair hang in the mud.

 

“Let me help you out there little guy,” she says. “See, you don’t want water in your hair. That’s thinking small. You gotta get mud, and I’ll tell you why-”

 

Katniss stands and rolls her quilt up, fumbling to shove it into her pack, before she stumbles back down next to Peeta. Besides the kids and the storm, breakfast is a silent affair. Thistle pays it no mind- chasing Vick and Posy around like she had been doing it all her life. Delly watches from the corner of her eye, but makes no move to join them. Peeta sits next to her, looking as tired as she must. But his hand on her back feels steady, and the set of his jaw is so resolute that she forgets she shouldn’t be leaning into him in front of her sister.

 

That’s when she realizes that something is different. Peeta’s hands are the same. His arms, scarred and tattooed, are still solid and strong. Stronger, even, than she remembered. His face, his eyes, those ashen-blonde curls; he’s the same Peeta as he’s always been. And yet, while he’s familiar, he’s completely new too. At least he feels that way, and though she knows something has changed, though she can’t say what.

 

Or maybe she’s the one who is different.

 

The flickering thing she thought had died inside of her is back, familiar, strange and battering away at her ribcage. But even that is different now. It’s still Peeta's. Still warm and fluttering like a tiny bird nestled inside her chest where her heart should be. But it doesn’t make her hands itchy with cold sweat the way it used to. Doesn’t leave her desperate to escape him and what he’s doing to her without even knowing.

 

What’s different is she isn’t scared of what that flutter means anymore.

 

Thistle tucks Vick under her arm and his laughter bounces around the cave. He kicks furiously, but she only rubs her fist on his scalp, mussing his hair and making him wail. For all Vick’s efforts to get away, he only succeeds in getting Thistle’s arm to wrap tighter around his midsection. He finally shrieks in a tone that sets everyone’s teeth on edge, and Delly stands abruptly, her mouth set in a thin line. Hands on her hips, she marches forward with a look on her face like she might have Thistle tucked under her own arm very soon. But she stops mid-stride, her eyes glazing over and her mouth popping open. She glances at Katniss, then Peeta, as if she suddenly realized she should be embarrassed about something.

 

“Doesn’t think about the future my ass,” she mutters distractedly as she continues toward Thistle.

 

Rory bounds past her, tipping an imaginary hat at Prim on his way.

 

“Just hold on Vick!” he says.

 

Prim giggles and glides over to watch what is quickly becoming a fray where someone could get hurt. Hazel must be thinking the same thing as the skin between her brows pinches and she too abandons breakfast to save the youngest of the Hawthorne brothers from Thistle’s tyranny.

 

She’s distracted by the warm rough texture of Peeta’s hand covering her own. She turns it over and slides her fingers through his.

 

“Katniss…”

 

The dirt beneath his boots grinds as he turns toward her with that mystifying, soft look that never fails to make her wonder what she could have possibly done to deserve it. It’s a look that usually precedes him doing something that flusters her, so she should probably expect his other hand to reach up, gently brushing the ridge of her cheekbone. But somehow she doesn’t, and it’s just as surprising when he presses his lips to her forehead. As he pulls away, a warmth spreads from the spot where his lips met her skin that’s so unexpectedly soothing, she feels her eyes sinking shut.

 

“When we get there... its not over,” Peeta says softly, his tone serious. Her eyes open and drift to their clasped hands.

 

He doesn’t have to elaborate. District Thirteen won’t be their safety. It had always been too much to hope for, and she should have known better than to expect something for nothing. It was one of the first lessons she had learned in Twelve- everything had a price, even people. Gale had made a deal with District Thirteen to protect his family, her included. But that didn’t mean they would honor it. It didn’t mean they could waltz right in there and expect protection.

 

“No, it’s not,” she says. Panem is at war with itself. Nowhere is truly safe.

 

“Then you know we don’t have to be afraid,” Peeta says earnestly. His eyes fall to the hem of his shirt and he fiddles with it before he starts to speak again. “We don’t have a choice; we need District Thirteen. But we know what we’re getting into this time around.”

 

There’s something she’s about to say. It’s on the tip of her tongue, but something strikes her as being strange, and then she realizes that Peeta has responded directly to words she’s said. Had he heard her? She looks at him in sudden confusion and tilts her head slightly as she scribbles her question in the sketchbook and holds it up for him.

 

‘How did you know what I said?’

 

“I was watching your lips,” he says, matter of factly. As if it hits him too late that he’s said something off, his face darkens and an embarrassed, crooked smile tugs at his mouth. “I’m sorry. I do that. Um, a lot, actually.”

 

She feels heat inch up her neck and flood her face. It’s not as if she hasn’t noticed. Peeta has always stared at her, even before they had uttered one word to each other. She just never thought about how often she caught him staring, because it would mean admitting how often she had looked for him.

 

“I know,” she says, as she twists a thread hanging from the hem of her dress around her index finger and clears her throat. “Where’s Johanna and Finnick?”

 

“Huh? Slow down, that’s too fast.”

 

She snatches his sketchbook and scribbles it out.

 

“They left earlier. Something about scouting the area.”

 

She raises her eyebrows at Peeta, and she doesn’t need to say what they’re both thinking.

 

In this weather?

 

Peeta shakes his head.

 

“Nothing for it but to hang tight until they come back.”

 

They wait most of the morning and into the afternoon when the storm finally peters out. Johanna and Finnick return drenched and angry.

  
“Two more days of this shit,” Johanna spits at Katniss as she stomps past her to grab her pack. Despite Johanna’s tone, she is relieved at her words, because not only does Prim look exhausted, but Katniss is down to her last pill. If they don’t make it to District Thirteen soon, everything will become a lot more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy guys! Long time no see! I won't make excuses except make sure you never pinch your sciatic nerve, because it sucks and you'll be on painkillers for a long, long time. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll do my best not to make you wait too long for the next.


	23. The End of the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End.

The days that come melt and bleed together.

 

A year ago all she wanted was a little rain.  Even a few measly drops would have done- just enough to dampen the parched earth of District Twelve, or to pool in the pails she set out in a futile attempt to collect rain water. A little bit would have gone such a long way- or she would have made it, anyway. But with every step Katniss takes, all she can think about is how badly she wishes the rain would stop. Even when it does finally clear it leaves behind mists so humid and heavy, that their clothes remain soul drenching wet.

 

Clouds of it ghosts past them whenever the wind blows, skimming the rotted leaves and mud of the forest floor and engulfing the trees before disappearing down toward the valley below. They stay on course with a temperamental device Johanna calls a Cube, which projects a map of their progress up the mountain but degrades into glitched static if they keep it open too long. Johanna insists it’s ‘just a little broken’, but still functional enough to lead them onward. No one else knows how it works, so whether or not that’s true is anyone’s guess. In fact, the only kind of Holo Katniss had ever seen before was the one that projected the Hunger Games in her house, and Johanna’s looked nothing like that.

 

When they’re alone one night by one of Peeta’s fires, he whispers that they’ll have to keep an eye on Johanna. Even though Katniss isn’t sure how much good it will do, she nods. To her surprise he looks at her and his eyebrows draw together in concern.

 

“You look exhausted.”

 

She clears her throat and tucks her hair behind her ears. Three days ago her pills ran out. Since then her eyes cross and blur whenever she tries to focus them, and black flecks dance in her vision like fleas on an old dog whenever she stands too quickly. It’s just a matter of time now. That night she stays with Prim long enough for her to fall asleep. As the fire burns down to smoking cinders she slinks away. She curls up next to him, telling Peeta that if he’s awake before her he has to wake her up. She gets halfway through her sentence before her voice is muffled as he wraps her up fiercely in his arms and the words he can’t hear die on her lips feeling hollow.

 

But she isn’t the only one struggling. Wet soil and a steep incline make the ground beneath their feet slippery and soft. Poor Posy has the worst time of all of them with her short legs, and Hazel seemed resigned to carrying her the entire way when Delly silently scooped her up and set her easily on her hip. To everyone’s surprise, Posy’s usual chatter with Delly stayed silent, and the younger girl fell asleep instantly in Delly’s arms. Delly’s shocked eyes find Katniss’ in the mist and her stomach clenches.

 

In the long periods of silent walking, her mind goes to dark places. There’s nothing to distract her while everyone is too out of breath to talk, so she’s stuck with the same questions looping through her mind.

 

Anytime she pauses to wipe some of the sweat from her cheeks, her eyes fall to the hem of her dress. Had her mother ever worn it? It had been there in her mother’s dresser for years, impractically pretty but potentially saleable, should things get bad like they once were. In all her memories of her mother she can’t recall her wearing anything but brown or grey, and certainly nothing made of fabric as nice as this.

 

She has a memory of her mother in the kitchen as she stood towering over the sink washing dishes. She seemed golden and bright against the greying pine cabinets, battered and chipped even then. The clink and rattle of ceramic on tin filled Katniss’ ears as she clutched the bottom of her mother’s dress. The fabric in her hand was soft- almost buttery to the touch- but still plush. Like a rabbit’s fur. She pet it, crinkled it, let it fall.

 

It isn’t until now that she remembers- The dress was red.

 

No one in the Seam wore red.

 

It was too expensive, too eye-catching for a place where it was better to keep your head down as much as possible. But her mother had worn a red dress when she was little, though it was probably something she brought with her when she had married her father. What had happened to that dress? It doesn’t pop up anywhere else in her memory. In fact, she doesn’t remember her mother wearing any of her nice Town dresses except when she and Prim were young. It was as if one day she had just packed them all away in her drawers, and left them for the moths to gnaw on.

 

And then she had run off into the fire, chasing after god only knows who, and took all the answers to questions Katniss never even knew she needed to ask with her to the grave.

 

Why had she done it? Who was she looking for someone? The idea enrages her. To choose someone else over Prim- it’s an unthinkable betrayal. And who could it have been? As far as Katniss knew, her mother never spoke to anyone in the merchant district, not since she had married her father and her family stopped speaking to her.

 

At least, no one that her mother had told her about.

 

Another betrayal. Her mother would do that. Keep secrets. Lie. She wasn’t always completely useless. She had once even had the wherewithal to successfully lie to a peacekeeper about a few of Katniss’ absences from school. To be fair, Katniss had been absent because she was hunting. But her mother had gathered herself enough to save her from what would have, without a doubt, been a whipping.

 

When the peacekeepers had come to their house, her mother had stood directly in front of them, shielding Katniss from their view and the blinding whiteness of the snow entombed Seam outside. The specifics of what her mother said to the two silhouettes in their doorway she doesn't remember. What she does remember is that it was a lie. That was a dangerous game to play with peacekeepers. Usually one you didn’t win.

 

But Katniss was less scared than she was confused. Her mother had vacated her bed for the first time in days, and Katniss realized the words she was speaking were all that she had said since the first snowflakes fell that winter. It was as if her mother had never left.

 

For a moment, Katniss made the mistake of nearly believing that was true.

 

That is, until the door groaned shut on its hinges and her mother turned around with those same glazed-over eyes, fixed and dull like a doll's. It was over. Whatever fog it was that her mother disappeared into had swallowed her up again.

 

How long Katniss stood there in front of the door she couldn't say. By the time she crawled onto the couch and buried her face in the rough material of its pillows, her mother had already drifted back to her bed and was staring blankly out the window at the falling snow.

 

And nothing at all had changed

 

-

 

Johanna was dead wrong about there being only two days left till they reached their Thirteen, but no one, even Thistle, says a word. They are mid-way through their fourth day after leaving the cave when Finnick whoops and she looks up just in time to see him and Rory disappearing over the crest of a hill. Johanna groans, throwing her head back, but her voice carries downhill.

 

“It’s about damn time.”

 

Everyone else picks up their pace at her words except for she and Peeta.

 

The trees break abruptly- so abruptly, in fact, that Katniss wonders if they’ve stumbled on a river, somehow snaking its way around the mountain, instead of straight down. But as she pulls up next to Thistle and sees what caused the forest to stop, a shiver rolls down her spine. The light is speckled and weak in the late afternoon sun, and white mists still roll around them, but what’s underneath the toes of her boots is unmistakably a paved road, albeit an old one. Very old. She steps onto it gingerly and gazes down to where it curves and disappears around a jagged rock face. Faded yellow paint dots the center, and weathered white lines sketch its edges- but only just. A long, jagged slice of metal embroiders its seam, but it too is damaged, hanging off the posts that hold it up and drooping where those posts had been destroyed entirely.  

 

“What is it?” Delly whispers as Katniss shifts her weight from foot to foot. There were no roads like this one in the forest around Twelve, but the long, thundering train of capitol vehicles that sped through the forest the night Rory was whipped would have arrived even faster if there had been.

 

“A highway,” says Hazel. “It’s a type of road from the dark days.”

 

“It’s called I-95. It used to lead into District Thirteen,” says Johanna.

 

“Where does it lead now?” asks Delly.

 

“Nowhere,” Johanna snorts.

 

“Perfect place to set up camp,” Finnick says.

 

The ground is too wet and too steep to do anything else anyway. Hunting for caves with fog still rolling around them and the sun already setting is a recipe for disaster, but it’s a bad night no matter what. Katniss and Rory can’t hunt, so everyone has to go to bed hungry, even the kids. Peeta can’t find enough dry wood to get any kind of fire going either, so they lay out what they can to sleep on and try to call it an early night, not that she gets any more sleep than the nights before. After all the nights spent on loamy soil, the ground is so hard that she spends much of the night rolling from side to side, trying to find a position where her hipbones aren’t pinching her skin against the pavement.

 

It isn’t until late that she finally slips into something like sleep, but her dreams are so fast they leave behind a slipstream of moments of consciousness. The sounds of the night come to her in flashes- curious animals ambling around their camp, a humming symphony of crickets and bullfrogs, and Posy’s soft, snuffling snores. Sometime not long after she manages to finally sleep, a twig cracks loudly enough to jolt her up.

 

The sky has crept incrementally closer to blue, a hazy deep gray that, even through the canopy of branches overhead, allows just enough light for her to look around. She gets to her feet unsteadily, tripping a little over her blanket and stretches.

 

“You just missed them.”

 

Johanna’s voice comes from the edge of the road. Her back is to Katniss as she stares into the section of forest they had come from the night before. She swings around and slouches over, thrusting her hands deep into her pockets. Peeta is next to her, the lines of his back stiff and tight. He rubs his face tiredly, and for the first time in days she sees something he’s probably been trying to hide all along.

 

He’s exhausted too.

 

“Who?” Katniss asks.

 

“Rory,” comes a hollow little voice from further into the woods. Katniss strains her eyes, but she already knows who’s spoken. Prim shuffles back up to the road, her eyes locked on her shoes and her arms crossed around her midsection, gripping a daisy between two fingers mindlessly.

 

“And Finnick too,” Johanna adds bitterly.

 

“Where are they going?”

 

“Finnick’s wife never made it out of Twelve. The Capitol has her,” Peeta says, his voice oddly tight. “And Rory went with him. For Gale.”

 

Prim drops her arms and her eyes lock on the daisy. That’s where they stay for a long time, even after Katniss gathers her in her arms and Johanna sighs heavily, looking for all the world like she’s aged ten years in the space of a few moments.  Nobody truly knows where the Games are held. Katniss hasn’t ever given it too much thought, because it didn’t matter, did it? Children still died every year, and she wasn’t too much interested in the where and how of it.

 

But Gale had wondered. She supposed it was mostly because that’s how his mind worked, always picking stuff apart and trying to figure out how it came together. It was no secret that Gale thought the Games were held in the Capital, so that’s where Rory was headed. Prim hiccups softly in her arms, but apart from that, the four of them are motionless as the sun rises and drenches them in soft, white-gold light. Katniss just holds her, unsure of what else could be done or said to take away what Prim is surely feeling short of dragging Rory back kicking and screaming.

 

It’s not until Hazel is awake that Katniss realizes where the sense of dread building in her gut is coming from. When Hazel figures out what’s happened, what will she do? She grabs her bow, mumbling something about trying to find food before they leave. She is a few feet into the forest when she hears Hazel’s low, melodic voice and she realizes that she must have known all along that Rory might do this, because no one is crying. Katniss pauses uncertainly and leans her back against a tree. Her eyes shut as she listens to Prim trying to explain where Rory has gone and why.

 

After Prim’s voice fades, the sounds of a pot being unpacked reach her. Hazel is getting breakfast ready. Maybe she has already lost too much. Maybe she knows that stopping to consider losing two sons instead of just one would spell disaster for what was left of her family. Either way, Hazel hasn’t stopped moving once, as if her very bones demanded she do so.

 

She pushes off the tree and charges into the woods.

 

That spinning feeling is back in her head- the one that tells her the world is moving too fast for her to catch up. She never wanted a child, but more than that, she never wanted to lose one. So she never considered what would have to come afterward. That the same sun would rise. The same air would move in and out of her lungs. All Hazel has is the stubborn set of her jaw and the clothes on her back, and still Katniss knows that no matter what it takes, Posy and Vick will eat today. Hazel will brush their hair, clean their faces and tend to their scrapes with the same gentle hands she always has.

 

Katniss presses her face into her hands and tries not to think all the thoughts about children, death and ‘afters’ she isn’t sure she could ever endure. When she comes back empty-handed, no one says anything.

 

Over breakfast the shock settles in. Posy won’t stop asking where Rory has gone in between tearful hiccups, and Vick’s anger builds with every passing murmur from his sister until only a rock throwing lesson from Thistle can calm him down. What could Hazel say to them but the truth? Rory left, and no one knew if he would be coming back.

 

“I do,” Prim blurts. Her cheeks color and she stares down at her shoes. “Rory said he’s coming back. He said he’d find us. I believe him.”

 

As they pack to leave, Katniss fishes their plant book out of her bag, and hands it wordlessly to Prim. They open it to its newest page, where they place Prim’s now wilting flower. It’s not really what this book is meant for. It’s supposed to be just for plants and how to use them, but since they don’t write anything it’s ok.

 

And it’s just for now, anyway.

 

-

 

Johanna leads them up the road following the curve of the mountain. It twists so abruptly they can never see far in any direction, but Johanna assures them she’s been over this road enough to know what’s coming. The moisture in the air has dissipated with the daylight, and Katniss’ lungs are full of air so fresh and sweet she’s dizzy with the sheer luxury of it. The air in District Twelve was the only kind she’d ever breathed, and she knew only because so many adults had commented on it, that it was heavy with coal dust, even stretching out into the forest beyond the gate.

 

They’re only walking for a short time before the earth squelches beneath her boots. The dirt on the pavement beneath their feet has slowly been changing color from a rusty grey to a dark brown. The soil is wet, where it hadn’t been just a mile or so before. Something changed. Along the edges of the road the soil is also wet, and the further they walk the muddier the ground becomes until water is trickling around their boots.

 

They must be headed down the other side of the mountain now. It wasn’t as cool here, and it certainly wasn’t as bright. There was something heavy hanging in the air beside the scent of wet and mouldering wood, something Katniss couldn’t place but was a bit like a combination of iron and dust.

 

The water twists around their shoes, and Posy gets lifted onto Delly’s hip while Vick gets the prized seat of Thistle’s shoulders, lifting him high above ever his mother’s head. Vick has been quiet and pale since this morning, but he manages to give Katniss a small grin and pretends to very seriously scout the area with a hand shielding his face from the sun. As she watches, his expression changes from mock serious to actual horror.

 

The trees end abruptly in front of them, and so does everything else.  

 

The road splinters in a jagged pile of cement and exposed girders, with the trickle of water spraying out over the edge and falling down into a muddy stream that cuts a deep path further down the mountain. The smell of iron and ash hangs so heavily in the air that Katniss can taste it in the back of her throat, and she claps a hand over her mouth instinctively. As far as she can see, there is nothing but blackened earth. Dotting the broken expanse are squares of soil arranged in an orderly patchwork that at first baffles her. But the longer she stares, the more she understands what it is that she’s looking at.

 

“What is this place?” Peeta rasps.

 

“Welcome,” says Johanna as she spins around and spreads her arms wide. “To Nowhere- also known as the outskirts of what’s left of District Thirteen.”

 

Peeta’s eyes are wide as they flicker across the barren landscape, and she knows he is thinking exactly what she is. Homes, buildings, lives, all blown away in an instant. Finnick warned her about this. So had Beetee, and Johanna too, in her own way. The Victors all knew from the very beginning what was at stake, and each one of them had tried to tell her. There were bombs that both the Capital and District Thirteen had that, in Johanna’s own words, could wipe the map clean. Katniss hadn’t understood then what she meant.

 

She does now.

 

“We can’t go through here,” says Hazel, her voice panicked. “It’s not safe. The bombs that did this leave poison in the air. We have to leave before-”

 

“District Thirteen solved that problem long ago,” Johanna says. “It may not look like it, but this place is actually doing pretty good compared to what the rest of the District is like. They put bacteria here to eat the poison over fifty years ago, and kept adding new strains that worked better and faster. It’s safe now but…”

 

The Cube in Johanna’s bag vibrates loudly.

 

“Well, we’re not going any further than this anyway,” she says hurriedly. “They’ll be here for us tomorrow morning.”

 

In the fading light they set up camp far from the desolation on the driest bank of dirt they can find, but when night falls Katniss spends more time staring out into the inky blackness than trying to sleep. Sae had warned her that history repeats itself. Fire. Unrest. Violence. Population control. But Katniss had figured out what the Capital was doing too late to do anything to stop it, and because of that so many had suffered and died. Sae had insisted that Katniss could stop what was happening, that people would listen to her if she talked, even though she doesn’t see why they would.

 

And now it was happening again. People were warning her, convinced she could make some kind of a difference even though she hadn’t even known how far the rebellion had already spread, how many lives had already been lost, or even begin to imagine how much more they stood to lose. She wasn’t a soldier. She didn’t even have any skills that were particularly useful besides from hunting, but killing a person and killing an animal were fundamentally different things. Johanna said she and Peeta were some kind heroes now, important enough to the rebels that District Thirteen offered to meet them at what had to be great risk. What did they stand to gain from doing this?

 

By sunrise she has no more answers than when the night started.

 

-

 

On a hollow summer afternoon some years ago, when she and Gale were hardly older than Prim is now, he had shown her a snake burrow. It seemed for all the world to be just a small hole in the dirt, but he said if you looked from the right angle, you could see that the hole was actually a tunnel that stretched a few inches into the ground. At the end of that tunnel, he’d promised that there’d be a hollow. That was where the snake lived, nestled happily in warm, loose soil.

 

It’s the first thing she thinks of when they arrive at District Thirteen, which, like a snake burrow, appears at first to be just a small hole in the dirt. But the entrance tunnel descends hundreds of feet into the earth before they even reach the main entrance. It’s how District Thirteen survived the bombing that raised their District to the ground. Maybe the only reason there’s any of them left at all. She learns all this from a soldier on the hovercraft that comes to scoop them up named Boggs, a dark man with watchful eyes and a patterned tattoo on his neck that catches Thistle’s eye immediately. As they fly over the District, Katniss stares out the window at the ashen landscape that passes below them. What remains of what had been the largest District in Panem were miles of earth too black to be natural and clusters of grey patchwork squares.

 

Today District Thirteen is a series of underground tunnels and chambers the size of whole neighborhoods in the Seam. When they arrive at what Boggs calls the Central Hall, a tall man with pale skin and prickly black hair is standing next to what Katniss learns is the entrance to the hospital wing. He extends his hand to Katniss first, his smile polite but brief.

 

“I’m Commander Augustus. On behalf of President Coin, welcome to District Thirteen.”

 

His dark eyes slide to her left.

 

“There’s more here than we were informed of,” he says his eyes sliding over Delly and Thistle impassively. Then he jerks his head at Peeta. “Who is that?”

 

He’s asking Katniss, but directly looking over her shoulder.

 

“They’re a package deal,” Johanna speaks up from behind her. Katniss turns around in time to see Johanna shrug as she motions between her and Peeta. “They do it young in Twelve.”

 

Augustus blinks, his face impassive as he turns back to Katniss.

 

“We come together or we don’t come at all,” she says.

 

Their first few days are spent in the bright, green-tiled hospital wing. Commander Augustus says this is so they can prepare their rooms, but later it’s decided that Hazel and her children will stay there for the foreseeable future. Katniss hadn’t realized until that moment how thin they’d all become trekking day after day through the woods on nothing but squirrel meat and berries. Especially the children.

 

The doctor who examined her is somehow already apprised of her medical condition, and asks her a series of questions she tries to get away with answering as shortly as possible. He draws blood, waves a flashlight at her eyes and scans her with the same finger-pricking machine that Beetee did. But unlike Beetee, this doctor tells her something solid.

 

The seizures are fixable.

 

It’s a small wire they insert behind her ear with a needle. Like a shot, only the medicine would last for years. When it happens, she almost misses it. She doesn’t even feel the needle poking her skin. Just the cold of the antiseptic, its bite in her nose, and the gloved finger pressing her ear back. A moment later and it’s over. The doctor is helping her off the table, pressing a bottle of mild pain relievers into her hand, and the door is closing behind her. The bottle of pills rattles in the hallway. Her hands are shaking. She grips the bottle so tight she can feel it bending beneath her hand. She looks up quickly as a nurse who doesn’t even look at her passes by, and walks resolutely to where Prim should be finishing up as well.

 

When she and Prim are released from the hospital, they’re directed to the garment wing. They take her clothes when she gets there and give her a stiff gray jumpsuit instead- the exact same uniform as the machinists who worked at the mines used to wear, only much, much older. Everyone in District Thirteen wears them- men, women and most of the older children. They let her keep her boots though. It’s a good thing they do because that’s where she decided to stash her knife, and something told her she definitely wouldn’t be allowed to keep that.

 

In the living quarters she and Peeta are assigned, she slits a hole in the corner of her mattress large enough to slide the knife inside and pulls the sheet back over it. If anyone ever finds it she can play dumb, but in the meantime it’s better if it stays out of sight. Prim is assigned a room of her own next to theirs, and chatters excitedly about her new roommate, a girl from District Three named Izzy.

 

Katniss tries to be excited too. For Prim’s sake.

 

But later, alone in the still darkness of her compartment, she feels her throat tightening. When she starts crying she doesn’t know, just that she is when Peeta finds her. The door slides open with a pneumatic hiss and a sliver of light falls across the corner of the bed where she’s curled up. He’s still for just a moment in the hallway, indecisive as to whether or not he should enter. When Katniss’ red eyes meet his, he steps across the threshold.

 

Later, she lies glassy-eyed and staring in Peeta arms. One of his arms is around her waist, the other curls across her back, and she buries her face in his shirt, breathing in the scent of detergent and sweat. He’s talking to her-

 

“We’re going to be ok, Katniss, I swear.”

 

And then she remembers that Peeta can’t hear her. She remembers that his world has no sound left in it- just muffled garbles and a soft ringing. No matter what she was feeling here, there was no way she felt even close to as isolated as he did. What would it be like if she couldn’t hear his voice?

 

She sits up, presses his hand against the front of her throat, and speaks slowly.

 

“Don’t let me disappear,” she says.

 

“Disappear?”

 

He cups her cheeks and brings her face back down to his. The heavy beating of her heart sounds desperately against his own as he whispers against her lips:

 

“You are Katniss Everdeen. You like the color green, and prefer salty over sweet. You’re better at seeking than you are at hiding, and you like to walk early in the morning when everyone else is still asleep. You’re a brave, and strong and so damn smart…”

 

He sucks in a quick breath and buries his face in her neck.

 

“Don’t go away from me. Stay.”

 

He tucks her into his chest and paints the world above for her with his words: every quiet, smoky winter morning, every hazy summer afternoon. Bare feet on cool grass, white clouds brushed against a blue sky, the exact shade of coppery-red that the leaves turn in the fall. His hand brushes her bare arm. He tells her about the smell of wet dirt and the taste of blackberries, warm and fat from the sunlight. She presses her lips to his ear and feels the muscles of his stomach contract under her fingertips.

 

The smell of pine and she tastes the salty warm skin of his clavicle.

 

The constellations in the sky and his hands cup her waist. Softly.

 

The sound of wind in the trees. Bare skin.

 

There are other things he shows her, behind her eyelids. First with his hand, then with his mouth. They dance like fireflies and then fade to a soft black.

 

They don’t. Not yet. But they will. The doctor said Peeta’s hearing will come back. Even now he can hear loud sounds and, just very softly, voices.

  
She wants to wait. She’s going to tell him, after, and she wants him to hear her voice when she does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up Next: An Epilogue.


	24. Peeta Takes Out the Trash, a Running Dry Outtake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In response this anonymous ask on Tumblr: So in Running Dry, what do katniss and peeta talk about when they're working together in the bakery or when he walks her home and stays with her? I feel like I need to know everything about these two :). I love their conversation on the roof so I'm curious as to how you view their daily connections and interactions. Thanks!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. It looks likely that Tumblr will be dying, and I'm getting a head start in reposting all my tumblr exclusive outtakes here. The Epilogue to this fic will continue as planned. Thanks!

**Peeta Takes Out the Trash**

**Set Between Ch8-Ch9**

* * *

 

“Katniss?,” Peeta calls from the back room. 

“Yeah?”

“Where’d you move the almond flour?”

Katniss rolls her eyes and slouches in defeat.

“Peeta. I already told you. I put it on the top shelf over the counter last night.”

“Are you sure? I can’t find it.”

“Peeta. Do I need come back there and find it for you?”

There’s silence for a moment. The distant sounds of Peeta rummaging around.

“Um. No. I think I found it.”

Katniss rolls her eyes. The door to the back room eases open, and Peeta’s bright blue eyes peek into the storefront.

“Sorry. I’m guess I’m not used to working with someone else.”

Sometimes Katniss forgets that much of Peeta’s time is spent alone in his kitchen, repeating the same recipes day in and day out. She wonders if the steel and bright lights ever made him feel trapped, like they did for her. Does he think of his kitchen as a prison?

She is shocked when the last thought escapes her mouth, and watches in horror as Peeta’s mouth drops open in shock.

“Sorry,” she says quickly. “I didn’t mean to-”

“No,” he says. “Its ok. To answer your question, sometimes. But, I’m kind of happy that I can make sure that people don’t go hungry. You know what I mean?”

She nods. She knows what it feels like to be the only thing standing in the way of someone else’s hunger. 

Peeta clears his throat and leans against the doorjamb. 

“Katniss, you know that I-”

Suddenly, the front door of the bakery swings open. It’s almost six o’clock. The bread they do have is nearly stale. Almost no one comes in at the end of the day. No one except-

“What’s up kitty-kat?,” oozes the voice of Kaolin Johnson. He’d been coming by every other night for the past two weeks.

Katniss doesn’t like very many people. Prim said it was because she wasn’t patient, and Katniss knows that her sister means it in the very best of ways. Prim was holding back from calling her quick to judge. But Prim tended to believe in the best in everyone, even when there was evidence to prove that this mindset was unwise. Katniss didn’t have the heart to shatter her bubble. That’d come anyway in time. Prim would come to learn that there are some people who are just utter, unapologetic human trash.

Kaolin was one of them.

Older than Gale by at least 3 years, Kaolin had hardly stepped foot in the mines before he developed a reputation among younger Seam women for not being able to take no for an answer. Though he was charming, and, yes, a little handsome, rumors swarmed him like flies to carrion. More than a few girls had stories to tell about Kaolin, and none of it was good.

Peeta smiles at her a little awkwardly and excuses himself to the back room. She’s never frustrated with him very often, but his habit of leaving her to deal with the worst customers was getting on her last nerve. Then again, it wasn’t like she could blame Peeta for not knowing the rumors ripping through the Seam groups at school. Even Delly wouldn’t know about this. Seam tended to keep to their own, and most of the goings-on in the poorer side of the district never reached the ears of merchant kids.

“What do you need now?,” she snaps at the older boy. 

“Didn’t know the merchants were taking in strays,” Kaolin says with an arched eyebrow. “Must be nice.”

“You’re not pretty enough for Peeta,” she snaps, and then, as if realizing what had just come out of her mouth, her blood rushes to her cheeks. “Just tell me what you want so I can close.”

“That’s a good question,” he says softly, his eyes flickering to the glass case. “I was going to try to pick up something dark and wild…”

His lips twist up slightly and his brow arches. If he winks Katniss swears she’s going to hurt him.

He does. 

Her hands fist and tucks them under the counter.

“But recently, I’ve been thinking… what about something fresh?”

His voice is toneless, almost bored. Katniss’ blood freezes in her veins.

“I’m just curious, you know. Your sister, Primrose. She’s a very nice girl. How old is she now? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

A loud series of crashes erupt from the back of the bakery, and Katniss takes advantage of the cacophony to yank Kaolin forward by the collar of shirt and slam his head visciously against the heavy steel counter. 

“Katniss?,” Peeta calls from the other room. “A little help?”

“On my way,” she calls back.

Kaolin struggles free of her grasp and yanks himself upright. Then, with a look that promises retribution, he bolts. He probably thought that if Katniss were alone, she’d be easy to intimidate. Huge mistake.

She locks the door behind him and tries to get her nerves under control. Prim is safe at home with Rory, who is much larger than Kaolin despite being younger by almost 8 years. Still, she is rattled. 

A desperate anxiety to get home surges through her.

But when she steps into the back room, she can see that that won’t be possible anytime soon. Baking sheets and over-sized pans litter the floor and counter, and there is flour everywhere. Including all over Peeta.

“Hi,” he says. “There may have been an accident. But I did manage to find the almond flour.”

He looks so miserable that for a moment, she forgets what transpired in the front of the store. Then, she laughs. And then she can’t stop laughing. Stomach aching, she slides down to sit on the floor, while Peeta brushes flour out of his hair, unaware that flour still streaks his face where his fingers missed.

Peeta grins, and sits down next to her.

“Whenever you’re done, you think you could give me hand?”

She stops laughing long enough to sit up straight. 

“Here, there’s still-”

She brushes some of the flour his hands have missed off one of his cheeks. Peeta’s skin is warm and pink under her fingertips. He’s always been warm. Or maybe her fingers were always cold. But she doesn’t feel cold. In fact, whether it was her sweater, or the residual heat from the ovens, she felt quite cozy herself. Her heart pounds a little faster. Maybe it was more than cozy. Flushed. Thats how she felt. 

She yanks her hand back and stands up. 

“I need to go,” she says. 

“Oh,” says Peeta as he stands up quickly. “That ok. Don’t worry about it, I can-”

“No. No. I’ll help you clean, but Prim is at a home, and I want to get back to her-”

“No problem,” says Peeta. “You can go now, I’ll just- Wait. This is about that guy, isn’t it?”

Katniss straightens her sweater and raises her eyes to Peeta’s before dropping them back down quickly.

“Katniss. It is, isn’t it? What did he say to you?”

“I can handle it.”

Regardless of whether or not she can handle it, Peeta insists on walking her home, and peppers her with questions about Kaolin. At first, she evades them. It would just be better if Peeta weren’t involved. But eventually, she answers some of them just to appease him.

He leaves her at her doorstep that night, but is in the exact same spot the next morning waiting for her when she opens the door to leave for work.

“Thought you could use some company,” he says lightly. Katniss remembers suddenly what an excellent wrestler he had been- may still be- his arms are thick and corded, and though she hasn’t spent much time considering it, the rest of him must be equally as strong.

Maybe she would like his company. 

-

Kaolin never comes around the bakery again. In fact, it strikes it her sometime a few weeks later that she has neither seen nor heard of him in a while. 

“Peeta,” she says one morning as she drinks the tea he has brewed for her. “Our least favorite customer hasn’t been back in a while.”

It takes Peeta a minute, and then he knows what she’s talking about.

He turns his back to her and eases the door the oven open, pulling out an enormous tray of muffins. Katniss watches the muscles in his shoulders dance before she catches herself and turns her attention back to her tea, her face burning.

Yes. Peeta is very strong.

“Don’t worry. I took care of it,” he says quietly, knocking the door to the oven shut with his hip and setting the tray down on top of the counter. He pops a steaming muffin out of the tray and puts it down in front of her. “Here. I tweaked the recipe on these a bit. Let me know what you think.”


	25. Happy Birthday, A Running Dry Short

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A birthday present for my beta, Opaque.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nevermind me, just more tumblr exclusive content I'm reposting here for posterity.

**Happy Birthday**

**A Running Dry Short**

**-**

“This is wrong. She’s turning twelve, not eleven.”

 

In the wintery light of late morning, Rory’s bronze cheeks grow rosy and he runs his hand through his hair.

 

“I know. But the distribution center only had these left.”

 

Katniss bites her lip. Candles are expensive and Rory has been trading an extra squirrel a week for the past month in order to split the cost for the only colored wax candles the distribution center has.

 

_Had._

They’re yellow. Prim’s wanted them for three years, but now its too late to get all twelve needed for her birthday.

 

In all likelihood, it wouldn’t matter to Prim. She’d be just as surprised and delighted with her eleven yellow candles as she would be with twelve, but its the principle of it that bothers Katniss. Prim deserves better. They all do, really. But Prim especially deserves a good birthday this year because it is the first year she’ll be eligible for the Reaping. In addition, her mother is dead, and though Prim didn’t show it much in front of Katniss, she knew that her sister still missed her. Katniss herself is having trouble reconciling the very fact that it happened, but her feelings on her mother’s passing are tied up in the kind of tight knot she knows better than to try to untangle.

 

Because even if she did, who could it possibly help?

 

No one, that’s who.

What’s more pressing is that there’s nothing that can be done for Prim. There isn’t enough money for another gift, and they don’t have enough time to figure out anything else. Hazel will only be able to keep Prim busy folding laundry for so long. Katniss bites her lip and takes the package of Prim’s birthday candles from Rory. He gives her a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

 

“You know,” he says hopefully, “she’s going to love them regardless. She might not even notice.”

 

She frowns.

 

“I’m pretty sure Prim can count.”

 

His face flames and Katniss feels her own do the same. She didn’t mean to snap. Not at Rory. He’s done so much for Prim’s birthday already- brought in bouquets of fern from the woods so the house would smell cheery and bright. Brought her a plump rabbit he had somehow managed to track to it’s den, even through the powdery snow. And, above all, he had managed his share of the money to get Prim’s precious candles.

 

But though she doesn’t know quite what to say to remedy her cutting remark, she also doesn’t feel like she should have to. Rory is the one who should be apologizing, in the end. He insisted that they wait and split the cost of the candles. It was waiting that had cost them a complete present. But all this means so much to Rory, and he had worked so hard, that she doesn’t have the heart to get upset at him.

 

She can’t think of what to do to fix their situation, so she finds refuge busying herself with that morning’s dishes so she could prepare the rabbit for dinner. The cold water coming out of the faucet stings her already frozen hands numb.

 

She doesn’t want to think about what this birthday means for Prim. For the past week, her normally bubbly sister has been reserved and anxious, and it was all Katniss could do to try to draw her out of her shell. The Reaping was on her mind, Katniss could tell. She had felt like that herself many times before. She knows the look. The ‘What if it’s me?’ expression that made your jaw tight and your eyes wide. She knew how the feeling of chaotic uncertainty, the madness of the known unknown, could strike in the middle of the most mundane of moments. Mucking out the snow on the front porch. Helping to fold the washing for Hazelle. Waiting for class to start.

 

And it would feel like it was insane for this to be normal. That there were hundreds, if not thousands, of other people who all felt the same, and yet nothing had been done to change it.

 

Its usually there that Katniss left off her thinking, because it was a useless waste of energy to hope for the impossible.

 

Things are what they are. And that’s that.

 

A resounding knock on the door echoes in the room, and, startled, Katniss drops the mug in her hand and it cracks against the bottom of the sink, then shatters into a thousand pieces.

 

“Katniss, are you ok?,” Rory asks.

 

She nods numbly, biting her lip as the water in the sink turns red and disappears down the drain. Where the cut is she doesn’t know. She can’t feel it.

 

“Can you get that?”

 

Before waiting for a response, she dashes to the bathroom and closes the door loosely.

 

As she pops open the white cracker tin that serves as their medical kit and rummages around for bandages, she can hear Peeta’s voice in the next room. He’s early. Why is he always early? Cursing under her breath, she yanks out the last of the sterilized linen strips that served as their bandages. A she does, little pots of balms and bags of herbs drop to the floor, rolling under the sink and clunking against their wooden washtub.

 

“Katniss?”

 

Dammit. Go away.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Rory said you cut your hand. Are you ok?”

 

“Yeah. Fine.”

 

He eases the door open a crack.

 

“That doesn’t look so good.”

 

“Its fine. I said it was fine.”

 

As Peeta steps into the bathroom light, her neck grows rigid and her jaw tight. Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone? She’s about to protest when her eyes flicker down to her stockinged feet, timidly balanced on the outermost edge of her heels on cold white tile of the bathroom floor, and surrounded by linen strips, leaking pots of balm and dried herbs that had escaped the confines of their muslin drawstring bags. There’s a hole in her stockings that hadn’t been there before.

 

Her eyes well and she wipes them furiously. She’s not angry at Peeta. Nor at Rory. She’s just angry, and there’s no reason, and they’re just there at the wrong place and the wrong time. Caught in the crossfire. Today should be a happy day. Its Prim’s birthday. She’s made it to twelve years old, something of an accomplishment in a district where infant mortality is commonplace- a problem she suspects has already been solved in the Capitol and some of the wealthier districts.

 

But Katniss can’t help but feel that Prim’s birthday or not, its been one of the worst days of her life. What today signified for Prim, and the fear she would face in the coming years, is all she can think about. Not the small party taking place in a few short hours. Not the gift she and Rory had worked so hard to organize. Not the rabbit that still sat on the counter, waiting to be dressed and baked.

 

Just Prim. Scared and alone on the stage, her tiny hand held high in Effie Trinket’s pink-lacquered claw. Because Katniss is finally unable to keep her safe anymore.

 

And then no matter what she does she can’t keep the tears off her cheeks, so she gives up entirely and turns around to face the bathroom wall. Its such a stupid thing to do, because there’s no window on that wall, and she’s being entirely obvious, but Peeta didn’t give her much choice barging in here after she already said everything was fine. She should have just locked that damn door.

 

“Oh, Katniss,” he says gently. “Here… Let me fix it for you. ”

 

But what’s wrong isn’t fixable, he should know that by now. She’s about to snap at him to get out and leave her be, but when she whirls around he’s holding bandages and few of the pots from the floor in his hands. And the look on his face. Tender and sad. What had she done to earn that look?

 

All the venom drains out of her. Bewildered, and suddenly more tired than anything else, her chin quivers and her chest heaves.

 

He gives an odd half-smile that looks more worried than anything else, and he dumps the things in his hands into the sink. He pulls her close and wraps his arms around her.

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

 

She nods mutely and wraps her arms around him too. At first she tries to keep a modicum of distance between them, but she abandons this almost as soon as she steps into his arms. Her eyes slip shut and the last of her tears slip graceless over the rim of her eyelids and trace down her cheeks, leaking over her chin and onto his shirt.

 

Should she pull away? He probably didn’t want his shirt to get wet. But for whatever unfathomable reason, he responds instantly to the wetness on his shoulder by holding her closer still, his arms tight around her back. She lets herself sink against him, and savoring his warmth and steadiness and hoping that by the time this is over, she’ll be ready to stand on her own.

 

She’s not, but thats ok. He steers her to sit down on the side of the heavy washtub and bandages her finger with great care. The cut isn’t bad, it just looks that way. He kneels in front of her, eye level with her hand. Just like her mother used to do. There’s something in the way she feels his breath on her wrists as he works. Soft puffs of air that tickles the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrists. Her breathing gradually eases to match his. And there something in the gentleness of his big hands, too. Its unexpected. It feels good. Safe.

 

“See? Good as new,” he says as he ties off her bandage. “Now… What’s next?”

 

-

 

When they emerge from the bathroom, Rory has left, but a note on the table explains that he’s gone back home to drop off the rest of his haul from the woods. Secretly, she’s glad he’s gone. She doesn’t know how to explain her little moment with Peeta, and isn’t sure she’d be able to say anything at all without stumbling all over the words.

 

And then Rory would think whatever he wanted about what he had heard, and she certainly didn’t want that. Anyway you slice it, he’s still Gale’s younger brother.

 

Though there’s nothing to explain, she doesn’t want to tell anyone about her moment with Peeta, and its not because she’s embarrassed. She doesn’t want the intrusion of their opinions or thoughts, or the coloring any lie she told would have lent the moment.

 

In spite of her embarrassment over the whole thing, she feels almost greedy about it, like its a piece of candy she’s desperately hoping no one knows that she has so she doesn’t have to share.

 

Because of her finger, Peeta insists on finishing off the dinner preparations himself. He refuses point blank to let her help. “The most you can do right for Prim right now is sit tight and heal up in time for the party,” he says with a wink. There’s no way her finger will be healed by tonight, but she somehow feels like he isn’t talking about her finger.

 

He’s brought a basket of food with him, which she didn’t ask for but is glad he brought anyway because there’s butter in there. Prim loves butter. So does she, but its Prim’s birthday, and if anyone should have the butter, its her.

 

She tries to insist on picking up more hours at the bakery to pay him back for the food, but he’s not having any of it. Why would he? Butter is expensive. Nothing she could trade or make would equal it in value. She’s starting to feel herself spiraling back down that same path from earlier today when Peeta asks her to open her mouth.

 

“Why?”

 

“You’ll see. Trust me.”

 

She opens it just an inch, and she watches nervously as he pops in what looks like a small, dry leaf. She’s about to angrily spit it out, when the flavor hits her tongue.

 

Its mild and rich all at once, and the texture, despite the dryness, is light and a little bit fuzzy.

 

She’s never had anything like it before.

 

“What do you think?”

 

“It’s good,” she answers.

 

“Its sage,” says Peeta. “I rarely ever use it, but its perfect for game. My dad used to dress your squirrels with it.”

 

Your squirrels. As if she had been feeding him personally, not trading for bread.

 

Suddenly bold, she asks to try it again. She likes the idea that she had been feeding him. Knowing that he was eating what she had provided made her feel a squirming sort of warmth that started in her stomach and fought its way into a shy grin on her face. Did he feel this way when he brought food for her? Her cheeks burn dark and she ducks her head to nibble on the rest of the sage leaf before he sees.

 

Before he starts the rabbit, he breaks out a few balls of dough he’s obviously prepared beforehand, and sets them on a tray in her stove. She’s curious as to what they are, but she’s willing to wait to find out.

 

Only just though. He’s hardly put them in the oven before the kitchen smells incredible, but she can’t name a single scent she recognizes except for onion.

 

There’s more spices in Peeta’s little basket, and its getting to the point that she’s worried that he may have robbed his own bakery blind, but Peeta insists everything is from his personal store, and nothing had been taken from the bakery stores. She frowns in disbelief, but he again distracts her by covering the rabbit with little slices of the butter, salt and black pepper, and what she considers generous amount of sage.

 

Her stomach growls loudly at the thought of rabbit and sage together.

 

“Ah, the victory knell,” says Peeta with a smile. “Means I’m doing my job right.”

 

She never considered that he might like feeding her, but suddenly its very obvious that he at least doesn’t mind it. Its odd, certainly, but Peeta isn’t like a lot of people in the District. Isn’t like anyone, really. He’s already kept her fed when no one else would, even her own mother, and she’s willing to trust that whatever enjoyment Peeta got from it is entirely innocent. He probably just likes to cook.

 

The rabbit goes in the oven, and the once pale dough, now golden-crusted and plump, comes out.

 

Twenty miniature rolls are set to cool on the counter, and Peeta grabs one with his bare hand.

 

“Peeta! Don’t-”

 

He doesn’t even flinch- just rips it open and sets it on a plate. Fragrant steam pours out of the tear in the pasty and, with a shrug and a smile, he sets it on a dishtowel in her lap.

 

“I don’t even feel it now,” he mumbles, as redness creeps from his cheeks to his ears. “You work around ovens long enough, you stop paying attention to burns.”

 

She can’t help but feel a little alarmed as he turns away and rummages through the basket on the table. She’s seen the scars on his arms. There’s no doubt in her mind that some of them are indeed from the ovens, but others of them are suspiciously uniform. Like someones hit with something still hot from the oven. Like a poker.

 

She blanches at the direction her thoughts have taken. Her own arms and hands are scarred, yes. But they were scars she earned herself. Badges of honor. She isn’t ashamed of them. They don’t earn her any points in terms of beauty, but she had never been shooting for that anyway. Beauty didn’t put food on the table. Scars did.

 

Except for Peeta’s. They were a source of shame for him. Something to hide. Something he felt he needed to lie about.

 

She knows why he would think that. What she doesn’t understand is _how_. Her heart hammers violently in her chest. Peeta is the greatest improbability she has ever known. Out of all the violence and anger that he had been born into, its _Peeta_ , who would feed a starving girl in the rain. Who would put his own life on the line to save people he didn’t even know simply because he believed it was the right thing to do.

 

How could he believe that his scars made him any less? Howcould he believe that, of all people, he’d need to hide them from her?

 

She watches his broad shoulders and the snowy skin of his neck. The pink ridges of his ears. The dramatic taper of his back into his waist. Its hard to believe that he’s the same boy she saw peeking out from behind his mother’s skirt when she dropped him off for school.

 

Does he honestly not see how beautiful he is? How utterly improbable? How rare?

 

She can feel herself gearing up to say something stupid. Its right there on the tip of her tongue.

 

So she opens her mouth and shoves the roll inside.

 

And, _oh_ , what a delicious mistake. Its rich and warm, and so unlike anything she’s ever had before. The crust is crunchy, flaky and buttery, but the inside is velvety soft, then rich and salty. The only flavors she recognizes are cheese and sweet onion, everything else must be more of Peeta’s spices. She can smell them, heady, salty, sweet and rich. Each one has a name she’s sure, but none of them she knows.

 

Its just another difference between Seam and Merchant.  

 

Though the pastry is far and beyond the best thing she’s eaten in her entire life, the sheer luxury of the flavor thrills and saddens her at the same time. How could she have put it all in her mouth at once? What a stupid thing to do. Tiny bites would have made it last so much longer! She could have nibbled now, then squirreled the rest away somewhere and returned over and over to it anytime she wanted to experience it again. But its gone now, and surely the rest would be for Prim and her friends.

 

Peeta turns around with his mouth open, as if in the middle of saying something, and promptly bursts out laughing. She probably looks like a chipmunk with her face packed full of food. A furious blush rises on her cheeks and she chews faster while scowling at him.

 

“I guess you like them,” he says. “Fat cheeks are a huge compliment for a baker. Probably the best compliment, actually.”

 

She swallows, already regretting that the bun is gone, and before she can say anything else, Peeta already has another one in his hand. He holds it up with a smirk.

 

“Ready for round two?”

 

How could she possibly refuse?

 

This time, she makes him split it with her.

 

His eyes get a little bright at this, but she refuses to consider why. She feeds him little bites as he wheels around the kitchen peeling potatoes to roast, mixing another bowl of batter, and washing off some of the ramps Rory had unearthed for them. She breaks the pieces off for him with pinched fingers as he swings by the counter she’s perched on, and pops them right into his mouth. Afterall, his hands are messy from the batter for Prim’s cake, and he should enjoy some of his own hard work. He doesn’t seem to mind her hands being that close to his mouth.

 

Even when his lips accidentally brush her finger.

 

-

 

Its dark except for the lit candles under Prim’s chin.

 

Across the table, Katniss watches as her sister screws her face up, surrounded by her friends and readying herself to blow out the twelve yellow candles stuck her tiny cake. Rory stands to her left, beaming. He has a right to. That twelfth candle had been the kind of miracle only a Hawthorne on a mission could pull off.

 

As of tonight, Prim is officially old enough to kill or be killed. But all Katniss sees is the same skinny, vibrant girl she has always known. She’s just a day older. Still just a kid.

 

Prim deserves so much more than this.

 

Katniss’ throat tightens, and in the warm darkness, her eyes prickle threateningly once again.

 

“Wait,” says Peeta. “Don’t forget to make a wish.”

 

Her sister’s face brims with sudden delight at Peeta’s words. Illuminated by the flickering light of the candles, Prim looks so beautiful. Healthy and happy. Its the kind of image Katniss knows she will remember for the rest of her life. She blinks furiously.

 

The thought that occurs to her next is not so much shocking as it is completely unexpected. _One day, Peeta will make a good father._

 

She doesn’t think Prim will mind if she joins her in making that wish. Her eyes slide shut as Prim inhales.

  
-


	26. Wool, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1/3 - The Epilogue.

Yesterday it was here. She could have sworn it was…. But as she squats in front of a tree and clears pine needles away from the soil underneath, it’s clear that she made a mistake. Her finger comes back with a thin coat of dirt so dry and fine it’s nearly powder. She rubs it carefully between her thumb and forefinger, watching as it rises like chalk dust in small clouds into the still air.

 

A frown drags on the corners of her mouth as she wipes her finger on her pants and stands. Peeta keeps reminding her that it’s been a long while since she’s been out like this, but she can’t help her irritation. Yesterday’s morning dew tricked her into thinking this copse of trees would be a good place to look for the tiny plant that’s eluded her for a week, but the late afternoon sunlight splashed on the cracked bark of the trees all around her tells a different story. It was a rookie mistake, one she never would have made if these were _her_ woods.

 

But these are not her woods, and this is not District Twelve.

 

There’s a rumor that a river slices through this forest somewhere to the west, but whether or not that’s true remains to be seen. For all the trees in the District Seven, most people here still had no experience with the woods- the _real_ woods, not the oak nurseries- beyond the fence. Even now, years after the fences had gone dark, then were ripped down. She strikes out in search of the river anyway, frowning at the boughs that arc over her head.

 

The shapes of the leaves here are eerily unfamiliar and the scent of the forest is strangely sharp- almost metallic. The earth is covered in dry, yellowing needles, and the sound of them crackling underfoot makes it nearly impossible to hunt, especially after a few good days of bright sunlight and heat. Today is the warmest day they’ve had so far, but even underneath the baked air she can feel a chill in the shade that never _truly_ left, even in the dead of summer. None of it made her feel more at ease. She had to start from the beginning- relearn everything she had once been so sure of.

 

She breathes deep. The dry air stings the back of her throat.

 

By the time she finds her way back to where she’d thought she’d seen the plant once before in early spring, she’s panting and lightheaded. With a grunt, she stops to sit with her back against a tree, drawing a glass jar filled with water out of her sack and drinking from it deeply. The water feels soft and cool as it trails down her throat, but it does nothing to relieve her exhaustion. Then again, why would it?

 

Everything is different now.

 

She slides her spine down the smooth bark so she can recline further and leans her head back. The sunlight is pink as it dances through her eyelids. Five minutes. Then she’ll keep going. Five minutes turns into twenty. Her eyes pop open and she scrambles to gather her mason jar and get to her feet. She would have missed the plants around her entirely were it not for the flash of red by her boot while she shoved her water back in her bag.

 

Raspberries.

 

They’re tiny little things. Not even as large as the nail on her pinky finger, and smaller, even, than the plant’s very thorns. But being picky is a luxury she's never had anyway, and she doesn’t intend on indulging in it now. She gets to work collecting a small handful of berries and leaves, careful to note the constellation of trees in the area on her way back home. She’d be back. Soon, probably.

 

The front door is hanging open when she arrives home, Peeta’s work boots lined up neatly outside alongside the rocker and the recycled glass bottles she’s been trying to coax a few seedlings to grow in. So far, she hasn’t had much success. Better soil might do the trick, and she decides to collect some on her next trip into the woods as she toes her boots off. A noise from inside interrupts her scheming and she smirks.

 

Peeta is singing.

 

From the doorway her eyes find his broad form as he strips out of a pine-sap coated flannel down to his undershirt then collapses back into a chair at the kitchen table.

 

“Hey,” he says in surprise as she walks in.

 

With a quick smile, she dumps the raspberries and their leaves in a bowl and kisses his forehead lightly on her way to the stove. He catches her by her hips and buries his face in her stomach as his arms wrap around her thighs.

 

“You look tired,” he sighs. The warmth of his breath sinks into the skin beneath her shirt. His thumb runs a gentle arc against the back of her thigh. “Everything ok?”

 

“I need yarn.”

 

The words leave her abruptly. A flash of a frown knits her eyebrows before her face melts back into a too-placid mask. Peeta sighs- a rush of heat against her stomach.

 

“Well, put an order in at the supply center. I think it’s too late in the month to get-”

 

“Peeta,” she interrupts, then clears her throat. “You need to get it.”

 

She slips away from him and busies herself with the kettle, refusing to turn back around to see the expression on his face.

 

“Ok. I guess I can stop by the distribution center after my shift tomorrow,” he groans as he stretches his shoulder with a pained wince. “What kind do you need?”

 

"Something... real.”

 

What she meant was nothing that was leftover from the Capitol- no sparkling threads or beads or bright colors. Just a simple twist of wool. Like the ones she remembered.

 

She blinks at the kettle as she fills it from the tap. In Twelve there had only been one kind of yarn- plain, undyed wool- and if you were lucky it wouldn’t be part dog hair. At home her mother had used plants and berries her father brought back from the forest to make dyes for it. She was good at it too, turning their kitchen into a rainbow of different reddish purples, deep greens and pale yellows that steamed with the scent of onion, stewing poke and something throaty and earthen she could only describe as _wet animal._

 

That's what she wanted- that itchy, stubborn fiber that had been the feel and scent of her childhood.

 

She turns the burner on underneath the kettle and waits for the stove’s tell-tale pulsing hum of electricity to start before rummaging through their cabinets for the mortar and pestle. At night she and Peeta still use kerosene lamps because the constant moan of electricity makes her ears ring, even though Peeta claims he never hears it. In all fairness, the bakery had been full of machines that were always on- the fridge, the freezer, the convection oven… Peeta had even let slip that when grain shipments came in from the Capitol the industrial mixer would be on all night to make sure there’d be enough bread for the following morning, and he had fallen asleep to the rhythmic whir of the dough paddle more than he could remember.

 

She knew by his tone of voice that he missed it, but all the sounds set her teeth on edge.

 

Sometimes it felt like they were choking her, and she would curl up with her hands pressed around her ears, breathing heavy and hard until Peeta found her. She's not complaining, of course. They're lucky to have electricity at all. Some Districts, like Eleven, were still fighting to get the wiring laid correctly. So much of Eleven had been destroyed in the war that the old debris had to be cleared before anything new could be built. Some of the orchards still had bombs laced in the ground, and no one was quite sure what to do about them yet. So the entire district was to be rebuilt from scratch, and tens of thousands were still living in the same kind of camp she and Peeta had lived in when they first arrived in Seven.

 

And having lived like that, she didn’t want to imagine life without a refrigerator again. Or lights you could depend on turning on, no matter what time it was. The house even had vents that could pump in hot air in the winter, and ceiling fans for the stickiest of summer nights.

 

They had one in front of the kitchen window- a small one- that swung its heavy head from side to side. It blows the small hairs that have escaped from her braid across the bridge of her nose and she sighs. With the mortar and pestle in hand, she grinds the raspberries and their leaves to a pulp, bundles that tightly in cheesecloth and plops it in an oversized mug. As an afterthought, she adds a lump of sugar. She'd rather have added some black tea leaves, but that’s out of the question now.

 

"You sure you’re ok?”

 

She stares at him. It’s the second time tonight he’s asked. Two days ago when she felt the first flutterings of change, her answer might have caused that dented crease between his eyebrows to make their first reappearance since the war ended. Today, at least, she can nod slowly and do so knowing she is telling the truth, which has become of urgent importance to her now that she is actively lying to him. She had no idea how the Seam women before her had done this. Had her mother done it to her father? Somehow it didn’t seem like something she would do. Her mother was nothing like the other women in the Seam- and had fared worse for it.

 

Katniss squares her shoulders.

 

“Fine.”

 

But as night falls and she and Peeta sit down for dinner, all her well-intentioned bravery frays and unravels in a pile at her feet underneath the dinner table. She can’t meet his eyes for more than a breath’s time, and the truth sits heavily unspoken in her throat, which closes every time she tries to swallow. And his hand on her knee only makes it worse. Peeta is always so _warm_. As the air in the kitchen changes from sticky to crisp, goosebumps prickle along her legs, and the point where he touches her becomes all the more obvious for it.

 

Her skin burns under his.

 

So later, with the dishes warm and drying in the rack underneath their quiet window, and all the machines dormant and dark, she coaxes that hand to warm her sternum to stem, arching into it as if Peeta wasn’t already prepared to give her anything she asked of him. If only she knew what it was that she needed- what would chase away the raw, empty ache he was leaving in the wake of his gentle exploration.

 

But she couldn’t fix what she didn’t have a name for in the first place.

 

All she could do was breath sharply as he pressed inside her, her name falling from his mouth in an almost silent plea against the shell of her ear. And it was no good- no good at all- the way she ached even after it was over, and Peeta had long since grown still and was breathing even and soft next to her- the curls that fell over his ears swaying in the soft night breeze from the open window.

 

-

 

Prim calls on Thursdays.

 

It’s the one day a week they can count on a phone line between the Capitol- what they now call _The People’s City-_ and Seven, though they never seem to have enough time to talk before it cuts out again. Prim is still with Rory, and though he’s doing better, they don’t know how long it will take before he’s released. This time, Prim says it will be soon. Katniss rests her head against the wall next to the phone cradle and twists the phone cord around her finger.

 

Then she asks Prim about the pattern.

 

The slip of paper had been stuffed in the pocket of one of her mother’s dresses long ago, and because Katniss had never counted on needing it, she had forgotten which one. The memory had come back to her deep in the night when she first felt the change, and ever since a gnawing dread filled her as she wondered what had become of the one thing her mother had ever taught her that was worth knowing.

 

_How to knit socks._

 

Of all the beautiful dresses her mother owned, only two remained- the soft orange one that she still owned (but never wore), and the blue polka-dot one Prim had kept. The odds that the pattern was in either of those dresses were always miserable, so Katniss is not surprised when Prim tells her that there was nothing in the pockets of that dress that she remembered.

 

Then again, it has been years since they fled District Twelve. Years since District Twelve was anything except ash and bone.

 

After she hangs up, Katniss tugs her boots on, ignoring the conspicuous absence of Peeta’s boots next to hers. He left hours ago for work, which she knows all too well because she made his coffee, but the empty space makes her stomach hot and tight. The feeling never fades as she makes her way to town, dodging construction crews and rumbling trucks full of supplies on her way.

 

A truck labeled ‘ _Bakery_ ’ in plain, blocky script catches her eye.

 

Her eyes find her boots as her chest tightens.

 

In town she finds what she needs almost immediately at one of the tables set up by the other refugees still desperate to sell whatever they could. On a table full of clothes, rusting tools and shoes too worn to ever sell, the four slender needles glint in the sunlight in a tin can full of other needles of various sizes and thicknesses. They’re slippery and sharp, almost velveteen but too cool. Small needles for small projects, she muses. She buys just what needs and unintentionally walks away with plans to return for the rest sometime soon.

 

She is stuffing the needles in her bag when she catches an older woman eyeing the scar on her temple that never faded. The woman then catches sight of what’s in her hand, and sniffs knowingly, her gaze sweeping Katniss head to toe.

 

“Things the way they are,” the woman says to no one in particular, “you’d think people would be more responsible.”

 

Katniss’ face burns and her pulse races hot and electric in her veins.

 

“Things the way they are,” she snaps. “you’d think people would know better than to comment on business that isn’t theirs.”

 

“Things the way they are,” a third voice interrupts, “you’d think two of the last survivors of District Twelve would know better than to start trouble in a District they weren’t invited to in the first place.”

 

Katniss turns on the person, a woman peering at Katniss over the top of her half-moon glasses, her mouth a pinched line of disapproval. She’s tall- much taller than any woman Katniss has ever seen before, and the twisted mass of hair on top of her head only adds to it. Her hands clench on her aproned hips and look as though they’ve been boiled alive. Pink, shiny skin stretches precariously over her knuckles, and her fingernails are nearly black. Katniss takes a step backward, memories peeling themselves clean off the forgotten back halls of her mind and flying to the forefront of her consciousness.

 

“This is a market,” the woman snaps. “Buy somethin’ or move along.”

 

Katniss glances down at the packets on the woman’s table, and her stomach drops. _Raspberry leaves._ Fat muslin sacks of them, just few coins each. But how, in a place like this? Her eyes catch on the rest of what’s on her table- sage, mint, willowbark, feverfew, black peppercorns, rosehips- She swallows and purses her lips, but a cold sweat has broken out on her skin, and she hurries away without another word. Peeta finds her still at the sink few hours later. Dinner is deconstructed on the table- A few chopped carrots, what’s left of their potatoes, one leek prepped to go into their stew, the other, forgotten and balancing precariously near the edge.

 

Peeta sighs deeply through his nose.

 

“Hey,” he says. She doesn’t turn around.

 

“Hi.”

 

He walks up behind her, wraps his arm around her waist and slowly turns the water off. A shaky exhale works it’s way out through her teeth, and she closes her eyes.

 

“No one is sick, Katniss.”

 

“No one is sick,” she repeats.

 

It was just her, that this happened to. Peeta didn’t need to wash his hands. Peeta wasn’t suspicious of food that came in packages.

 

“Food is just food,” he murmurs by her ear. “Food isn’t poison.”

 

This time she nods instead of repeating him. It isn’t until he says these things that she can trust them. She needs him to remind her what’s real and what isn’t, because if Peeta can believe it, then so can she.

 

“I know.”

 

He presses a kiss to her neck, nuzzling the skin behind her ear.

 

“I’ll get the aloe.”

 

He had tried growing many things with her, but he seemed to have a knack for killing any plant he touched, which only got harder and harder to watch. He’d either overwater it to the point of root rot, or he’d leave it out in the sunlight until it browned and withered. Katniss finally went to the market and asked the apothecary for a plant no one could possibly kill. He came back with a tiny, spiked plant Katniss thought looked like something a Gamemaker would imagine as some kind of plant muttation. Turned out, it was an ancient, native plant of District Four used in healing. The inside of the plant had a jelly filling that could be rubbed on the skin, something she thought her mother might have mentioned as being part of a snow coat, once. Peeta was painfully hesitant with the ugly little plant at first, but it took very nicely to the spot he picked out for it- the window in their bathroom- and he was so proud of it Katniss didn’t have the heart to tell him how she found the plant in the first place.

 

He lifts her by her hips onto the table, pulling her tender hands from her lap, slicing open a spine of aloe and rubbing the cool filling on her angry skin. Even as gentle as Peeta can be, it never was enough after handwashing. The cracks of her knuckles split wide open in the hot water, and anything that brushed the skin one way or the other stung. Every wince drew his brow tighter together.

 

“I’m ok,” she assures him.

 

He frowns at her hands as he starts to wrap the worst of it, her palms, in a light layer of gauze.

 

“I am.”

 

He looks up, something fierce flashing in his eyes before his lips press urgently to hers and her hands fall from his. He catches her face in his work-roughened palms, his thumbs tracing the ridge of her cheekbones before he steps closer, wedging himself between her legs. They part easily for him, the right one rising instinctually to hook itself over his hip. Peeta has kissed her many, many times over the years- he was sweet while they lived in District Thirteen, earnest but insatiable during the war, lingering when they shared a tent after relocation… But it this new type of kissing- urgent, fierce but tender- she’d didn’t know yet what it meant. Something blooms low at the juncture of her thighs, a heat that’s familiar but made new all over again in its sharpness. She can feel the brush of the button of his jeans through her bunched dress and it’s maddening. Peeta’s hands trail down her neck, brushing over the heady thunder of her pulse there, before he hooks the straps of her dress under his fingers and brushes them down over her shoulders. A sound escapes her- a cross between a moan and a plea- and she fumbles with the buttons of his plaid shirt.

 

This is usually where Peeta chuckles gently and tells her to slow down, peels her hands away from his buttons and seals his mouth over hers to catch the frustrated groan that she’s never able to hold back.

 

Tonight he tugs the top of her dress down, dragging the cups of her bra with it and watches her breasts sway as he leans her back on the tabletop.

 

Need stings in her low belly as he bunches her dress at her waist, but her brow creases as she catches sight of his face. Something is wrong.

 

“Peeta-”

 

She tries to sit up, but he catches her, pressing another searing kiss to her lips.

 

“I want you,” he breathes against her cheek. She whimpers, attempting to press her thighs together to relieve the spiraling ache, but Peeta has her trapped. He’s not heartless, of course. He may like to tease, to edge her past the point of coherency, but he never let her go to bed hungry. Her worry forgotten, she inches closer to him then lets him press her back on the table, but not before she makes a dive for the button on his jeans. He pulls her hands away, and the set of his jaw lets her know he’s made up his mind about how tonight will unfold.

 

“Those hands are dangerous,” he smirks, and then he sweeps his fingers past her underwear and plunges them inside.

 

She is lost. He’s too fast, too good, too unrelenting, and she falls apart in minutes, and before she can catch her breath he’s lifting her knees over his shoulders and easing himself inside. Her back bows up to meet him as he bears down on her, one of his hands running from her shoulder, down her waist, then caressing her thigh, before tucking his thumb in the crease behind her knee. His other hand is planted between beside her ear, and he allows her neither surrender nor purchase as he moves inside of her.  

 

Her heart hammers wild and fast in her chest like a bird beating its wings against the bars of its cage, like the organ was trying to beat its way free of her and live its life tucked safely in Peeta’s palm instead. A ragged cry escapes her as he angles her hips _just so_ and picks up the pace.

  
She can’t-

 

She-

 

She comes hard the second time, riding a wave of electric shocks that trail down her legs and curl her toes. It feels like a constellation of stars blooming and dying under her skin, and as he fills her a hot tear springs free and makes a mad dash over her temple to lose itself in her hair.

 

“You’ll tell me, eventually,” he breathes raggedly into her ear, “whatever it is you’re hiding, right?”

  
-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, yes I have been holding onto this for a long while. What can I say? I love this universe, I love these characters, I love writing it, thinking about it, and adding more to it. But it's been a while, and I can't keep clinging to this. So this is Katniss and Peeta's final adventure in RD. Not really final, but the final part I'll be writing. This is part 1/3 of the Epilogue (this spiraled very quickly into about 10k lol) and obviously, they are very much so adults now and lots of time has passed between the end of the last chapter and the start of the epilogue. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for sticking around for the ride. <3


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